Recording the last days & hours of the Reading trolleybus system in 1968, the photographer has chanced their luck in capturing this precious moment from a moving car. Hoping the camera has fully framed the passing trolleybus at speed, the outcome will remain an unknown until the film is processed and returned.

 

Successfully captured to slide film, the image shows Reading trolleybus 186 accelerating up Wokingham Road towards the Three Tuns terminus on Wokingham Road. The 17 route was a cross-town service that operated between Tilehurst to the West of the town, to the borough boundary at the Three Tuns pub, to the East of Reading.

 

The petrol station in the backdrop was situated on Wokingham Road at its junction with St Peter's Road. Today, the site still remains dedicated to cars, but as a Hertz car hire concern. Sadly, the stylish period garage canopy is no more, replaced by a cabin.

 

On a more positive note, the trolleybus (VRD186) still exists. The bus was sold by Reading to Teesside Municipal Transport in 1968. The bus was one of several ex Reading trolleys that were to supplement the small fleet of Teesside trolleybuses in Middlesborough. The Teesside system closed in April 1971, and 186 was chosen as the last official trolleybus to operate the network.

 

Latterly owned by the late David Brown, the bus is now destined to operate at the Beamish industrial Museum in Co Durham. The trolley will feature as part of their 1950s townscape, currently being constructed on site.

  

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 have left the hustle and bustle of London, travelling southwest to a stretch of windswept coastline just a short drive the pretty Cornish town of Penzance. Here, friends of Lettice, newlyweds Margot and Dickie Channon, have been gifted a Recency country “cottage residence” called ‘Chi an Treth’ (Cornish for ‘beach house’) as a wedding gift by the groom’s father, the Marquess of Taunton. Margot, encouraged by her father Lord de Virre who will foot the bill, has commissioned Lettice to redecorate a few of the principal rooms of ‘Chi an Treth’. In the lead up to the wedding, Lord de Virre has spent a great deal of money making the Regency house habitable after many years of sitting empty and bringing it up to the Twentieth Century standards his daughter expects, paying for electrification, replumbing, and a connection to the Penzance telephone exchange. Now, with their honeymoon over, Dickie and Margot have finally taken possession of their country house gift and have invited Lettice to come and spend a Friday to Monday with them so that she might view the rooms Margot wants redecorating for herself and perhaps start formulating some ideas as to how modernise their old fashioned décor. As Lettice is unable to drive and therefore does not own a car, Margot and Dickie have extended the weekend invitation to one of their other Embassy Club coterie, Lettice’s old childhood chum, Gerald, also a member of the aristocracy who has tried to gain some independence from his family by designing gowns from a shop in Grosvenor Street. Gerald owns a Morris*, so he can motor both Lettice and himself down from London on Friday and back again on Monday. After the retirement of the housekeeper, Mrs. Trevethan, from the main house to the gatekeeper’s cottage the previous evening, the quartet of Bright Young Things** played a spirited game of sardines*** and in doing so, potentially solved the romantic mystery of ‘Chi an Treth’ after discovering a boxed up painting, long forgotten, of a great beauty.

 

Now we find ourselves in ‘Chi an Treth’s’ Regency breakfast room with views through the French doors, overlooking the wild coast on a remarkably sunny day for this time of year. Dickie, Margot and Gerald are all seated around the table in their pyjamas and robes enjoying breakfast, some with more gusto than others, as Lettice stumbles into the room and joins them at the table.

 

“All hail the discoverer of lost treasures and the solver of mysteries!” cries Dickie dramatically as he doffs an invisible hat towards his friend.

 

“Oh!” gasps Gerald, raising his right hand gingerly to his temple. “Must you be so loud Dickie? Is he always like this in the mornings, Margot darling?”

 

“He is, Gerald,” Margot sighs from her seat opposite him at the breakfast table as she takes a slice of thinly sliced toast and spreads marmalade across it with as little noise as possible.

 

“Morning Dickie!” Lettice returns Dickie’s welcome, walking up to him and placing a kiss firmly on the top of his head amidst his sleep tousled sandy hair. “Good morning, Margot. Good morning, Gerald.” Stumbling down the room and reaching her seat at the table opposite Dickie she picks up her glass tumbler and then turns to Gerald to adds. “It could be worse.”

 

“What could be?” Gerald asks, taking the pot from Margot’s outstretched hand and proceeding to plop a generous spoonful of marmalade on his own toast slices.

 

“Dickie’s frightfully jolly morning personality trait.” she replies, walking back the way she came to the sideboard, where she helps herself to orange juice. “His cousin, the Earl McCrea, plays the bagpipes every morning to wake the guests when he’s on his Scottish estate.”

 

“How frightful,” Gerald winces at the thought before continuing in a withering voice. “After a night of champagne like we had last night, that’s the last thing I should want.”

 

“Apparently the Prince of Wales quite likes it though**** when he visits.” Margot adds. “Coffee, Lettice darling?”

  

“Tea,” Lettice replies laconically before turning her attention to the lidded chaffing dishes on the sideboard. Lifting one, she quickly drops it when she sees and smells what lies beneath it with a loud clatter that elicits a groan from Gerald, Margot and herself.

 

“Mrs. Trevethan’s kedgeree,” Margot remarks without looking up as she pours tea from a silver teapot into Lettice’s teacup.

 

“Ugh,” mutters Lettice.

 

“It takes some getting used to.” adds Margot.

 

“Is an acquired taste, I’d say.” observes Gerald wryly, looking about the plates at the table. “Since no-one appears to be having any.”

 

“I think my stomach will settle for a boiled egg and an apple.” Lettice places her glass of orange juice gingerly on the tabletop and reaches across to grab an apple from the glass comport in the centre of the table. She then sits before reaching for an egg from the cruet proffered by Margot.

 

“Freshly boiled by Mrs. Trevethan.” Margot says with a smile.

 

“What’s taking that woman so long to bring me a bloody aspirin?” quips Gerald.

 

“God how much did we drink last night?” Lettice asks.

 

“Before, or after you found the Winterhalter*****?” Dickie asks.

 

“That explains why my head is fit for cracking, just like an egg, this morning then.” Lettice rubs her own temples and winces. “I think I could do with a couple of aspirin too.”

 

“Surely they have heard of aspirin down here.” Gerald grumbles, his train of thought about his own sore head undisturbed by the conversation around him.

 

“It is only Cornwall, Gerald darling,” Margot gives him an aghast look. “Not the middle of the Sahara Desert or the Antarctic, you know.”

 

“I might have more luck getting some aspirin in the Sahara.”

 

“Now Gerald, there’s no need to be cantankerous, just because your hangover is purportedly worse than ours.” Margot quips.

 

“Was Mrs. Trevethan cross with the mess, we,” Lettice pauses, blushes and corrects herself. “I… made last night in the storeroom?”

 

“Not at all, dear girl!” Dickie pipes up cheerily, deliberately hitting his own egg with gusto to break the shell, eliciting a scowl from Gerald which he returns with a teasing smile. “Margot and Gerald did a capital job of tidying most of the mess up, and I think the old dear is rather pleased to have people to look after again.”

 

“She can’t care that much about us if it takes this long to fetch me an aspirin.”

 

“Oh do shut up, Gerald old boy,” Dickie barks, surprising even himself at the sudden change to his usual affable self. Taking a few deep breaths, he looks across the coffee pot, teacups and marmalade pot to his friend and continues in laboured syllables. “Look, we all need the bloody aspirins this morning, and they will get here when Mrs. Trevethan gets them to us. Alright, old boy?”

 

Gerald shrinks back in his seat, whilst both Margot and Lettice smirk at one another.

 

“I do like your bed jacket, Lettice darling.” Margot remarks. “It suits you. Did Gerald make it for you?”

 

“This?” Lettice pulls on the burnt orange brocade of her jacket, making the marabou feather trim quiver prettily about her pale face. “No. I actually bought this at Marshall and Snelgrove’s****** because I saw it and I liked the colour.”

 

“And what shall we do today?” Dickie asks the table, casting Gerald a warning look that makes Gerald think twice about saying that his head feels too poorly to do anything.

 

“Well,” Lettice remarks, turning around in her seat to peer through the French doors across the lawn and the windswept tree line. “It’s a fine day today. It might be nice to take advantage of the good weather and go exploring down along the cove.” She turns back. “That’s if no-one else has any other more appealing ideas of course.”

 

Margot smiles and starts nodding. “That sounds splendid, Lettice darling! You could bring your paints with you. There’s a rather nice vista featuring an old lighthouse that I know you would enjoy painting.”

 

“Capital idea, old girl!” Dickie agrees. “The bracing sea breeze will be a perfect way to dust off the fuzzy heads from last night.”

 

Gerald quietly sinks further back in his seat but says nothing.

 

At that moment, the door to the breakfast room creaks open and Mrs. Trevethan shuffles in, wearing the same rather tatty apron over another old fashioned Edwardian print dress of a rather muddy brown colour, carrying a silver tray on which she has several tumblers and a small jar of aspirin. When her eyes fall upon Lettice, she smiles broadly. “Metten daa******* Miss Chetwynd.” she says, dropping a bob curtsey.

 

“Good morning Mrs Trevethan.” Lettice replies.

 

The old woman shuffles across the room and around the oval breakfast table where she removes a glass and the jar of tablets and deposits them in front of Gerald. “Your aspirins, sir.”

 

Dickie gives him a knowing smile, and Gerald mutters a thank you in reply.

 

“I am sorry about the mess we made last night, Mrs, Trevethan.” Lettice apologises to the old Cornish woman as she places a glass tumbler on the table before her, feeling the heat of a fresh blush rising up her throat and into her cheeks as she speaks. “It really was an accident.”

 

“Oh!” scoffs the woman with a dismissive wave of her hand as if shooing a sand fly away. “That’s quite alright. It’s nice to have young people, any people, about the house again after so long. You did make a fine mess, but you cleaned it up pretty well.”

 

“Oh, that was Margot and Gerald’s doing, not mine.” she looks sheepishly to her two friends at either side of her at the table as she sips her orange juice. “I was quite shaken by the whole incident.”

 

“Well, that was quite a pile of things you brought down,” Mrs. Trevethan laughs as she looks down upon the slight girl before her. “Especially for one your size! But look at what hidden treasure you uncovered with it!”

 

“That’s true, Lettice old girl!” Dickie remarks. “If it weren’t for you, that Winterhalter might have sat there another century, evading would-be treasure hunters.”

 

“If it’s a Winterhalter, Dickie,” tempers Lettice. “It may not be. It may not be her.”

 

“Who?” Gerald asks, perplexed, passing Lettice the aspirin bottle after taking out two tablets for himself. “Winterhalter was a man.”

 

“The captain’s lost love of course, Gerald!” scoffs Lettice. “Don’t be dim.”

 

“Sorry, it’s the hangover.”

 

“Oh that’s Miss Rosevear in the painting,” Mrs. Trevethan remarks. “There is no doubt of that.”

 

Lettice eyes the old Cornish woman up and down. Even with her weather-beaten face and white hair indicating that she is of an advanced age, a quick calculation in her still slightly muffled head suggests that she cannot be so old as to have known the lady when the portrait was painted.

 

Mrs. Trevethan starts laughing again as she observes the changes on Lettice’s face, betraying her thoughts. “No dear, I’m not that old, but I still knew Miss Rosevear when I was young, and she was older, and even then, she was still a beauty. It’s her face make no mistake.”

 

“Really Mrs. Trevethan?” Margot gasps, sitting forward in her chair, her half finished cup of coffee held aloft as she sits in the older woman’s thrall. “How?”

 

“What was she like?” Lettice adds excitedly.

 

“Is there truth to the legend?” Dickie asks.

 

“Well, Mrs. Channon, I was a maid for the Rosevears when I was a girl and first went into service.” The old woman’s eyes develop a far away sheen as she reminisces. “Mr. Rosevear had a beautiful old manor about half-way between here and Truro. Burnt down now of course, but you can still see the ruins from the train, if you know where to look. There’s even an old halt******** where the house used to be: Rosevear Halt. My first ride on a train was taken from Rosevear Halt up to London when I was taken with a few of the other maids to clean Mr. Rosevear’s rented London house for the Season.”

 

“And Miss Rosevear?” Lettice asks with trepidation, hoping to glean information about the mysterious beauty in the painting and from the legend.

 

“Oh, Miss Elowen was the youngest of the three Rosevear daughters. They were all beautiful, but she was the loveliest, in my opinion anyway. She could dance and play the spinet, and she had a voice that could have charmed the angels from the heavens.” A wistful look crosses her face. “And she was blithe, or had been before my time at the house, I was told by some of the other maids. Her elder sisters were far more serious than she: set upon always wearing the most fashionable clothing and focussing upon good marriages, whereas the youngest Miss Rosevear, she just took life as it came to her without complaint. Although, she always had an air of sadness about her when I knew her.”

 

“Without complaint? What happened to her, Mrs. Trevethan?” Dickie asks, swept up in the tale as much as his wife and Lettice. “Why didn’t she marry my ancestor of sorts, the captain?”

 

“I don’t rightly know, sir, why she didn’t marry him. As I said, this all happened before my time with the Rosevears, but there were others amongst the older household staff who were witness to what happened, so I have some inkling. I think Mr. Rosevear took against the captain because,” Mrs. Trevethan pauses, lowering her eyes as she speaks. “And you’ll pardon me for speaking out of turn, sir.”

 

“Yes,” replies Dickie. “Go on.”

 

“Well, I think he took against the captain because he wasn’t a legitimate son of the Marquis of Taunton. The Rosevears were an old family you see, and well respected in the district. It might not have looked proper for someone of her family’s standing to marry the illegitimate son of the Marquis, even if he was a naval hero and well set up by his father. However,” She pauses again. “I don’t think things would have gone so badly for him, if it wasn’t for the other two Miss Rosevears.”

 

“What do you mean, Mrs, Trevethan?” asks Margot.

 

“Well, I said that Miss Elowen was the prettiest of all three, and I stand by that. Even when she was in her forties when I first met her, she had a look that could stop idle chatter in a room. Her two sisters weren’t so fortunate, and their looks had begun to fade by the time she met the captain, may God rest his soul. Miss Doryty, the eldest was ten years her little sister’s senior, and for all her plotting and planning for a good marriage, a good marriage never found her, nor her sister, Miss Bersaba. Miss Doryty was her father’s favourite as to look at one, you would like to see the other in appearance and temperament. I think she took against the captain because her little sister was likely to marry before her two siblings and Miss Doryty wasn’t going to have that any more than Miss Bersaba was. Miss Doryty was the eldest and felt it her right to marry first, and Miss Bersaba wanted Miss Doryty married off so that then she could get wed herself. Even when I worked for the Rosevears, both ladies still talked about her would-be suitors up in London, yet not a one ever materialised, and I never knew of them ever going to London. Miss Doryty always was bitter, and a bully. I think she swayed her father’s opinion on the captain. I also know, because I heard her say it often enough within my earshot, that she was of the opinion that it was Miss Elowen’s responsibility as the youngest daughter to care for her father and unmarried sisters into their dotage, since their mother had been in the churchyard many a year already.”

 

“And did she?” Lettice asks sadly, her hand rising to her mouth in upset.

 

“Like I said, Miss Chetwynd, Miss Elowen took whatever life dealt her with forbearance. She never complained, even though her sisters obviously treated her in a lesser way than they should their own kin.”

 

“And, she never married?” asks Margot.

 

“None of the Miss Rosevears did, Mrs. Channon. They lived alone in the Big House. I was still in service there after Mr. Rosevear died. The ladies continued to do good deeds in the district, and they used the house for tombolas and fetes to raise money for the poor. Then I met and married Mr. Trevethan and I had to leave the Rosevears’ service. I heard from friends who stayed on after I’d gone, that the house slowly fell into disrepair, but I was in Penzance with my own family, so I never went back to see for myself.”

 

“And you say there was a fire at the house?” Dickie asks.

 

“There was, sir.”

 

“How did it start, do you know?” continues Dickie.

 

“I couldn’t say for certain sir, but I’d imagine it started from a fallen log. The Rosevears had ever so many fireplaces without fireguards. It's why I won’t have Mr. Trevethan light a fire in any of the fireplaces here that don’t have fireguards. All you need is for a smouldering log to fall on a carpet, and before you know it… whoosh!” The old woman gesticulates dramatically interpreting the way of wild flames.

 

“And did Miss Rosevear die in the fire?” Margot asks. “How thrilling if she did.”

 

“And you say I love dramatics,” Gerald grumbles, looking at Dickie.

 

“What a terrible thing to say, my love.” Dickie looks at his wife with horrified eyes.

 

“Oh yes, but wouldn’t it be terrifically romantic?” gushes Margot in reply.

 

“None of the Rosevears died it the fire, Mrs. Channon. In fact, no one died in it, thank God! But the family lost a great deal of standing with the loss of the Big House and all its contents, and the sisters moved to Truro and lived in much reduced circumstances, I’m told. And that’s where they died. I don’t know who died first, Miss Bersaba or Miss Doryty, but my friend who used to help char for them after they moved to Truro said that the two elder sisters health declined dramatically, and Miss Elowen fulfilled the destiny predicted by her eldest sister, and she spent her life looking after her sisters.”

 

“Do you know if, after her sisters died, whether Elowen ever saw the captain again, Mrs. Trevethan?” Lettice asks tentatively.

 

“I can’t say for certain, Miss Chetwynd,” the old woman replies. “But almost certainly no, to my knowledge. Taking care of her sisters, Miss Rosevear became something of a recluse in Truro, and after Miss Doryty and Miss Bersaba had joined their parents in the churchyard, it was too late for Miss Elowen. She was set in her ways and lived as she had for many a year prior, alone and hidden from the world. The captain too. Mr. Trevethan and I only served him for about five years before he died, and he never left the property once during that time. He barely left the house. And I’d lived in Penzance my whole married life and we all knew about the sea captain in the house on the hill by the cove, and I never once heard of him coming to town. So, miss, I’d say he was much the same, a recluse. And so ends my tale.”

 

“Well, “ Dickie announces, releasing a pent up breath he didn’t realise he had been holding on to. “Thank you so much for sharing it with us, Mrs. Trevethan. I shall know who to come to the next time I want to know anything about local history.”

 

“I should be getting back now, sir. I have to reorganise that storeroom, and then there’s lunch to prepare.”

 

“Oh, we’ve decided to go down to the cove today so Miss Chetwynd can paint the landscape.” Margot announces with a smile. “Could you pack us a picnic luncheon to take with us, rather than having us eat it here, Mrs. Trevethan?”

 

“Oh, pur dha********* Mrs. Channon.” replies Mrs. Trevethan before dropping a quick bob curtsey and shuffling out through the breakfast room door again.

 

“Well, what a tragic tale!” enthuses Margot, taking up a slice of marmalade covered toast and taking a bite.

 

“Not so much tragic as just sad, my love.” Dickie replies.

 

“I say again,” Gerald grumbles. “You say I’m the one who loves drama.”

 

“Well you do, Gerald,” Lettice chimes in, stirring extra sugar into her almost forgotten cup of tea. “And we love you for it.” She assures him. “But I happen to agree with Margot. It is a tragic tale, more so than just sad. Sad is too… too…”

 

“Insipid?” Gerald offers.

 

“Thank you, Gerald. Yes, too insipid a word for it. The loss of youth and true love makes this a tragic tale.”

 

Dickie chuckles and shakes his head. “Well, I wouldn’t doubt that there was a little bit of wax lyrical about Mrs. Trevethan’s version of the story, as it would be with any local legend. However, what I think is important about the story is that it tells us exactly who the lady is in the Winterhalter painting. It gives us provenance, which makes it all the more valuable.”

 

“If it’s a Winterhalter, Dickie!” Lettice reminds him again. “It may not be.”

 

“Well, whether it is or it isn’t,” Margot adds in. “All this talk won’t get us out into this unseasonable sunshine and down to the cove so Lettice can paint the lighthouse. Let’s finish up breakfast and get ready to go out.”

 

*Morris Motors Limited was a privately owned British motor vehicle manufacturing company established in 1919. With a reputation for producing high-quality cars and a policy of cutting prices, Morris's business continued to grow and increase its share of the British market. By 1926 its production represented forty-two per cent of British car manufacturing. Amongst their more popular range was the Morris Cowley which included a four-seat tourer which was first released in 1920.

 

**The Bright Young Things, or Bright Young People, was a nickname given by the tabloid press to a group of Bohemian young aristocrats and socialites in 1920s London.

 

***Sardines is an active game that is played like hide and go seek — only in reverse! One person hides, and everyone else searches for the hidden person. Whenever a person finds the hidden person, they quietly join them in their hiding spot. There is no winner of the game. The last person to join the sardines will be the hider in the next round. Sardines was a very popular game in the 1920s and 1930s played by houseguests in rambling old country houses where there were unusual, unknown and creative places to hide.

 

****As a youth the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII and then Duke of Windsor) became a proficient player of the highland bagpipe, being taught by William Ross and Henry Forsyth. He frequently, until his later years, played a tune round the table after dinner, sometimes wearing a white kilt. He was also known to wake the guests at his house on the Windsor Great Park, Fort Belvedere, with a rousing rendition of a tune on the bagpipes.

 

*****Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1805 – 1873) was a German painter and lithographer, known for his flattering portraits of royalty and upper-class society in the mid-19th century. His name has become associated with fashionable court portraiture. Among his best known works are Empress Eugénie Surrounded by her Ladies in Waiting (1855) and the portraits he made of Empress Elisabeth of Austria (1865).

 

******Marshall & Snelgrove was an up-market department store on the north side of Oxford Street, London, on the corner with Vere Street founded by James Marshall. The company became part of the Debenhams group.

 

*******“Metten daa” is Cornish for “good morning”.

 

********A halt, in railway parlance in the Commonwealth of Nations and Ireland, is a small station, usually unstaffed or with very few staff, and with few or no facilities. A halt station is a type of stop where any train carrying a passenger is scheduled to stop for a given period of time. In Edwardian times it was not unusual for wealthy families with large houses close to the railway line to have their own halt stop for visiting guests or mail and other deliveries.

 

*********”Pur dha” is Cornish for “very good”.

 

Contrary to what your eyes might tell you, even though the food looks quite edible, this upper-class Regency country house domestic scene is actually made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures, some of which come from my own childhood.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The Royal Doulton style tea set featuring roses on the breakfast table came from a miniature dollhouse specialist on E-Bay, whilst the silver teapot on the left hand size of the picture comes from Smallskale Miniatures in the United Kingdom, as does the jam pot to the right of the toast rack. The toast rack, egg cruet set, cruet set and coffee pot were made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. The eggs and the toast slices come from miniature dollhouse specialists on E-Bay. The apples in comport on the centre of the table are very realistic looking. Made of polymer clay are made by a 1:12 miniature specialist in Germany. The comport in which they stand is spun of real glass and was made by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering in England as is the glass of orange juice on the table, the jug of orange juice and the bunch of roses on the sideboard at the back of the photograph. The remaining empty glass tumblers are all hand made of spun glass and came from a high street dolls’ specialist when I was a teenager.

 

The Queen Anne dining table, chairs and Regency sideboard were all given to me as birthday and Christmas presents when I was a child.

 

The fireplace in the background of the photo comes from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Shop in the United Kingdom. The two candelabra on it were made by Warwick Miniatures, and the Georgian Revival clock on the mantlepiece is a 1:12 artisan miniature made by Hall’s Miniature Clocks, supplied through Doreen Jeffries Small Wonders Miniatures in England. The vases came from a miniatures specialist on E-Bay.

 

All the paintings around the drawing room in their gilded or black frames are 1:12 artisan pieces made by Amber’s Miniatures in the United States and Marie Makes Miniatures in the United Kingdom.

Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.

 

Today however we are northwest of Lettice’s flat, in the working-class London suburb of Harlesden where Edith, Lettice’s maid, grew up. She is visiting her parents as she often does on her Wednesdays off, and today she is helping her mother, Ada, shop for groceries and the pair have been traversing the Harlesden high street. They have visited the local grocers where Ada has filled her basket with some of her household staples: lettuce and apples, some Bisto gravy powder, Oxo stock cubes, Ty-Phoo tea and some bars of Hudson’s Soap, the latter of which she will grate in her laundry to make soap flakes to wash the laundry she takes in to help supplement the family’s income. Now the pair are at Mr. Chapman’s, the local butcher. As the two ladies walk through the door, the shop bell rings out cheerfully to announce their arrival.

 

“Hullo Mrs. Watsford.” Mr. Chapman calls cheerily from his bench against the far wall behind the counter, where dressed in his familiar uniform of a navy blue vest and a blue and white striped apron he glances over his shoulder. He pauses slicing up some ham turns and smiles cheerily at the two women. “How are we today?”

 

“Oh quite well, Mr. Chapman. Thank you.” Ada replies as with a small groan she places her worn, roughly made shopping basket, the only one Edith has only ever known her mother to have, on the shop counter.

 

“And Mr. Watsford?” the middle aged and balding butcher asks, his smile bright and genuine beneath his salt and pepper moustache.

 

“Quite well too, Mr. Chapman. Thank you for asking. He’s at the factory at the moment.”

 

“As he should be, Mrs. Watsford. But I imagine he’ll be home for his tea, soon.”

 

“That he will Mr. Chapman.” Ada confirms.

 

It is then that Mr. Chapman’s eyes fall upon the pretty form of Edith standing next to her mother. He admires her willowy figure dressed in her three-quarter length black coat with her green leather handbag hanging in the crook of her arm and her purple rose and black feather decorated straw hat sitting smartly atop her flaxen hair which is tied in a neat chignon at the back of her neck. “I say,” he remarks with widening blue eyes. “This fine young lady can’t be your Edith, can it Mrs. Watsford?”

 

“Hullo Mr. Chapman.” Edith greets the butcher she has known all her life shyly as she deposits her handbag on the counter next to her mother’s basket and brown leather handbag.

 

“I say!” he laughs. “Wait until Nellie sets her eyes on you.” He leans back across the sawdust covered floor* behind the counter and calls though a small doorway leading from the shop, “Nellie! Nellie, you’ll never guess who’s out here.”

 

“Who is it then?” calls back an equally chipper female voice before moments later, Mrs. Chapman, in a pink and white striped frock covered with a pink floral pinny, bustles into the shop. She stops in her tracks when she spies Edith, and her slightly sagging face breaks into a broad smile of delight. “Why if it isn’t little Edith Watsford!”

 

Mrs. Chapman hurries out from behind the counter and envelops Edith in an all embracing hug, pressing the young girl to her heavy breast. When Edith first went into service for the pompous and mean spirited local widow, Mrs. Hounslow, who also happens to be the landlady of the Watsfords, Mrs. Chapman was a bright and cheerful influence in the life of the then homesick and unsure young girl. Mrs. Chapman felt for the poor young teenager with sallow cheeks and took Edith under her wing, slipping her a little bit of extra meat if she could spare it during the more lean years of the war, and stopping by when she knew Mrs. Hounslow was out to teach Edith a few easy recipes she wasn’t taught by her mother to cook for the old widow, who in spite of being quite wealthy, was always very mean when it came to providing a budget for food, yet still expected to eat like a queen.

 

“I haven’t seen you in, what, four years, my pet?” the butcher’s wife continues.

 

“Around about that, Mrs. Chapman.” Edith replies shyly.

 

“Yet, I’d know that face anywhere!” Mrs. Chapman chuckles, holding Edith at arm’s length and drinking in her smart appearance. “Where are you working now, Edith pet?”

 

“I’m up in Mayfair.” she replies proudly.

 

“Mayfair!” Mrs. Chapman exclaims. “Well isn’t that a turn up for the books, Ada!” She turns to Edith’s mother, her sparkling dark eyes crinkling up in delight. “Who would have thought? Little Edith, that wee slip of thing, all grown up and working for a household in Mayfair!”

 

“I work for the daughter of a viscount now, Mrs. Chapman.” Edith continues proudly. “It’s much easier than working for old Widow Hounslow, as she’s in one of those newfangled flats** where everything is on one floor, and everything is brand new. Plus, Miss Lettice is far nicer to work for than mean old Widow Hounslow.”

 

“Edith, love!” Ada exclaims. “Shame on you!” she chides. “You should be more grateful. Mrs. Hounslow took you on as her maid when you had no experience or references.”

 

“Because you were cheap.” adds Mrs. Chapman, her smiling mouth screwing up with distaste as she nods knowingly.

 

“Now I won’t have a bad word said about her, you two.” Ada wags her finger admonishingly at her daughter and then looks disappointingly at Mrs. Chapman. “You’re as bad as each other. Really you are! I know she isn’t the easiest woman to rub along with Nellie, but besides giving Edith her first position, she helped pay for many a meal in my house with her sixpences and shillings putting your husband’s meat on my table over the years. We should all be grateful to her. She does a lot for the locals.”

 

Both Edith and Mrs. Chapman roll their eyes, then look at one another knowingly before smiling mischievously at one another and chuckling.

 

“And thinking of meat, what can I get for you today, Mrs. Watsford? What does that hard working husband of yours fancy for his tea?”

 

“I’ve come to get two rashers of bacon and I think, a shilling’s worth of mutton for a pie.” Ada replies after a moment’s consideration.

 

“Coming right up, Mrs. Watsford.” Mr. Chapman replies as he turns around, whilst Ada fetches out her small leather reticule*** from the confines of her handbag.

 

“It looks like life has been good to you, now you aren’t working for that mean old Mrs. Hounslow anymore, my pet.” Mrs. Chapman says, addressing Edith as she grasps both her hands with the friendly familiarity of two long time friends. “Just look at that smart outfit of yours.”

 

“Oh,” Edith dismisses her Mrs. Chapman’s comment with a flap of her hand. “My coat came from a Petticoat Lane**** second-hand clothes stall. I picked it up dead cheap and remodelled it myself.”

 

“Taking after your old Mum then?” Mrs. Chapman remarks with a hint of pride. “Is that right Ada?”

 

“Mum taught me everything I know about sewing, Mrs. Chapman. She taught me how to make something beautiful from nothing special at all, and I’ll always be grateful for that.”

 

Ada smiles proudly at her daughter.

 

“And that colour in your cheeks, Edith pet!” Mrs. Chapman exclaims. “It must be all that good upper-class Mayfair air.”

 

“Now that, “ Ada remarks to Mrs. Chapman. “You can put down to Edith’s new beau.”

 

“A beau?” Mrs. Chapman gasps. “Edith pet, you didn’t say anything!”

 

“Well, you haven’t really given me the chance to tell you yet.” Edith giggles.

 

“Well tell me now!” the butcher’s wife trembles with anticipation. “Who is he? What’s his name?”

 

“His name is Frank Leadbetter. He lives in Holborn but works for my local grocers in Mayfair. He’s the delivery boy.”

 

“A good, fine and stable job, Ada.” Mrs. Chapman remarks to Edith’s mother with a nod of approval. “I like the sound of him.”

 

“Mum thinks he’s a Communist.” Edith whispers.

 

“I heard that, Edith love!” Ada pipes up. “And I’ll have you know, that I don’t think that. I just don’t hold with some of his fancy ideas about whose who and what’s what, is all.”

 

When Mrs. Chapman gives Edith a quizzical look, the young girl explains, “Frank is more political than Mum or Dad are, and he believes in bettering himself.”

 

“It’s not that I mind him bettering himself, Edith love.” Ada defends herself. “It’s his ideas about the system. I don’t think we need to tear down things that work just fine, only to re-build them again. You’ll agree with me, won’t you Mr. Chapman.”

 

“Of course I will, Mrs. Watsford.” The butcher replies as he returns with two rashers of bacon partially wrapped in paper and a tray of diced mutton. “In my shop, the customer is always right.”

 

Edith and Mrs. Chapman chuckle good naturedly as Ada’s face falls in disappointment at the half hearted statement from her would be ally.

 

“Mum’s softened a bit towards Frank since he showed up with tickets for her and Dad to the White Horse final*****.”

 

“Goodness! I would too, Mrs. Watsford!” Mr. Chapman enthuses as he takes out some of the diced mutton from the battered metal tray. “Tickets to the White Horse final! You and Mr. Watsford were the lucky ones. I’d hang onto this chap if I were you, Edith. Sounds to me like he’ll make a grand son-in-law for your parents.”

 

“We’re not getting married just yet, Mr. Chapman!” Edith blushes. “Just stepping out together.”

 

“Aye! Aye!” Mr. Chapman replies with a wink.

 

“Well, it seems like everything is better, now you aren’t working for old Widow Hounslow.” Mrs. Chapman says, squeezing Edith’s hands. “Congratulations pet. I’m so happy for you.”

 

Just then the light coming through the glass paned butcher’s front door is partially obscured and the bell above the door tickles prettily as it opens.

 

“Thinking of which,” remarks Mr. Chapman with an arched eyebrow as he quickly turns around back to his butchering bench.

 

An older woman dressed from head to foot in black sweeps haughtily into the shop, the black jet beads of her shawl sparkling in the light like precious jewels as she releases the door and allows it to slowly close behind her, yet not quite engage with the lock.

 

“Good morning, Mrs. Hounslow.” Mrs. Chapman says a little begrudgingly as she leaves Edith’s side and moves swiftly behind the old widow and closes the door to keep the cool air of the spring morning outside the already cool butcher’s shop.

 

“You know I don’t approve of women working in the front of the shop where they can be seen, Mrs. Chapman.” the old woman pronounces dourly through her bitter pucker of a mouth as she looks down her nose in judgement at the butcher’s wife. “It’s most unseemly.”

 

“Well, things have changed since the war, Mrs. Hounslow.” Mrs. Chapman replies defiantly with a forced brightness in her voice that rings untruly. “We all have to do our bit these days.”

 

“Your husband came back from the front, thank the good Lord,” the old widow replies crisply, before pausing and looking wistfully out of the shop window, through the rabbit and goose carcases hung outside the shop in as much of a lavish display as to bring out the flavour in the meats on display. “Unlike some.” She artfully withdraws a white handkerchief embroidered with a heavy black trim, which Edith imagines her mother spent hours sewing for her for only a measly few pence.

 

“As a matter of fact, Mrs. Hounslow,” Mrs. Chapman elucidates. “I’d only come out to the front of the shop from the cash office so that I could say hullo to Edith Watsford. You remember your former housemaid, don’t you Mrs. Hounslow?”

 

The old woman with her hair still styled in the fashion of her mid Nineteenth Century youth, coiled at the back and topped with a lace trimmed cap, as was common of many elderly women her age, peers with a squint across the shop floor of the butchers, only then appearing to notice that both Edith and Ada are present.

 

“Good morning, Mrs. Hounslow.” Ada says with deference, bobbing a small, servile curtsey to the widow.

 

“Mum!” Edith chides her mother, knowing that she should be the last person to curtsey to their mean landlady.

 

“Goodness!” remarks the old widow unflappably with an arch of her thick salt and pepper eyebrow over her right eye. “Is that my old chit of housemaid?”

 

“It is, Mrs. Hounslow.” Edith manages to say through barred teeth in a forced smile, refusing to curtsey to her former mistress.

 

“And doesn’t she look well, Mrs. Hounslow.” Mrs. Chapman enthuses. “All grown up and so elegant.”

 

Mrs. Hounslow peers at Edith with her coal black button eyes that match her outfit, contemplating the young girl from within the confines of her jowly and doughy face. “That, Mrs. Chapman is a matter of opinion.” she remarks dismissive of the butcher’s wife’s remark. “You look peaky, girl.” she snaps. “Are you sickening for something?”

 

“No, Mrs. Hounslow.” Edith remarks in surprise. “Not at all.”

 

“No doubt your new mistress, poor creature, doesn’t feed you as well as I did.”

 

Edith bristles with the insult implied by the old widow in her pronouncement like a sharp slap in the face. Mrs. Hounslow was always quick to find fault in anything Edith did, even when she had done it correctly. She remembers the many nights she went to bed in the dark and draughty attic up under the eaves of Mrs. Hounslow’s high pitched roof, her stomach growling after her meagre supper of watery broth with few limp pieces of cabbage and some slices of carrot in it. That was all she could muster for her supper after the old widow had dined on a fine repast and then forbade Edith from eating any of the leftovers, which Edith would then be obliged to serve the following day to the old widow who would greedily devour them for luncheon in the dining room. She wants to scream at the old woman, and tell her how much happier she is now, and how much better treated, but catching a glimpse of her mother’s pale face as she almost imperceptibly shakes her head, she holds her tongue. Old Widow Hounslow may not be her mistress any longer, but she is still her parents’ landlady, so she keeps her own counsel silently.

 

“Chapman!” Mrs. Hounslow barks at the butcher. “I want one of your raised game pies.”

 

“I…err…” stammers Mr. Chapman somewhat meekly. “I was just serving Mrs. Watsford, if you’d…”

 

“Mrs. Watsford, you don’t mind waiting whilst Mr. Chapman serves me, do you dear?” She eyes Ada with a hard stare which indicates that whilst posed as a question, it is clearly a statement. “You know what a busy woman I am.”

 

“Not at all, Mrs. Hounslow.” Ada says deferentially, picking up her basket and handbag and backing away meekly from the counter, allowing the imperious figure of the black clad widow to shuffle up to the counter, onto which she drops her beaded handbag with a rattle of glass beads.

 

“Now, Chapman,” Mrs. Hounslow continues sharply. “A raised game pie, no, a game pie and a giblet pie, delivered this afternoon, if you please. Trixy will be there to take it from you at the scullery door.”

 

“Very good, Mrs. Hounslow.” Mr. Chapman demurs.

 

“I’ll settle the account in due course, Mrs. Chapman.” the widow says, implying that the cash office is where the butcher’s wife belongs. She releases a sigh of satisfaction. “Well, I cannot stand around prattling idle gossip like some,” She looks meaningfully between Ada, Edith and Mrs. Chapman. “Gossip is the Devil’s work, and I on the other hand, have God’s deeds to perform. So many good deeds.” She smiles smugly to herself. “So if you’ll excuse me, Mr. Chapman, Mrs. Chapman, Mrs. Watsford.” Then she looks at Edith and mutters something unintelligible in a grunt and waves her hand at the young girl before picking up her handbag and sweeping out of the shop again.

 

There is a collective sigh from Mr. and Mrs. Chapman, Ada and Edith as Mrs. Hounslow leaves.

 

“If she didn’t spend as much as she does in here, I’d refuse to serve her.” Mr. Chapman says.

 

“It’s alright, Mr. Chapman.” Ada says, returning her heavy basket and handbag to the counter. “Really it is.”

 

“No, it’s not, Mum!” pipes up Edith hotly. “She’s a rude old…”

 

“Edith!” Ada warns, wagging her finger at her daughter warningly. “I won’t say it again. I won’t have anything said against Mrs. Hounslow. She’s our landlady and we should be grateful to have a roof over our heads. Anyway, Mrs. Hounslow’s a widow.”

 

“I know, Mum. I’ve grown up hearing about how Mrs. Hounslow’s husband died a hero in the siege of Mafeking in the Boer War. But that doesn’t give her the right to lord it over the rest of us. She’s a mean old so-and-so, Mum, and you know it. She treats everyone else like rubbish, and one day… well one day she won’t be allowed to.”

 

“My goodness!” Mrs. Chapman claps her hands with pride. “The old Edith I knew a few years ago wouldn’t have said that.”

 

“No, it’s the influence of young Frank Leadbetter, Nellie.” Ada says with a frown. “I told you, he’s all about pulling the old system down.”

 

“Well, I think that’s a jolly good influence, Ada.” Mrs. Chapman says. “Even if you don’t think so, especially if the system doesn’t work.” She smiles at Edith before turning back to Ada. “Your daughter has a very valid point, and well you know it, even if you won’t voice your opinion because she is your landlady. Old Widow Hounslow is mean and there’s an end to it.” She nods emphatically. “Do you remember Trixy, Edith?”

 

“Oh yes, of course I do.” Edith says. “She was the girl I trained up for Mrs. Hounslow before I left for my next position.”

 

“Well, the poor thing is even more timid and mouselike now than she was when she arrived at old Widow Hounslow’s, and that’s all on account of the mean old biddy!” Mrs. Chapman nods emphatically.

 

“Well, mean or not, I’m not going to let the likes of old Widow Hounslow spoil my day off.” Edith says pluckily. “Come on Mum. Let’s pay for your parcels and go home and see Dad. He’ll be home from the factory soon, wanting his tea.”

 

“Well, it’s been lovely to see you again, Edith.” Mr. Chapman says as he hands Ada her packages of meat.

 

“Yes it has, Edith pet.” agrees Mrs. Chapman with a smile. “I’m so pleased to see you looking so hale and hearty and doing so well for yourself. I’m so proud of you, and I know you do your mum and dad proud too.”

 

With her basket in the crook of her left arm, Ada hooks her right arm through her daughter’s and the two open the shop door and walk out onto the Harlesden high street with smiles on their faces.

 

*Regardless of where the butchers shop was, whether a suburban or up-market shop or a small concern in a village, the standard practice was to dust the wooden floorboards of the shop behind the counter where the butchering was done with sawdust. The idea was that the sawdust would sop up any spilled blood or dropped offcuts of meat that was easy to sweep away and helped prevent slips.

 

**With the “servant problem” far more prevalent following the Great War when servicemen and factory girls not wishing to return to their low paid and hard working lives of pre-war drudgery in service, the building of flats that were easier to maintain, rather than the large houses built prior to the war that required a retinue of servants to manage them, became the new fashion for the upper classes, but were still something of a novelty in 1923. By the end of the decade, wealthier people living in flats would not only be more common, but would be a statement of fashionable modern living.

 

***A reticule is the predecessor to a modern day purse and is a woman's small bag or purse, usually in the form of a pouch with a drawstring and made of net, beading, brocade or leather. They date back to the Eighteenth Century. Where did the word reticule come from? The term “reticule” comes from French and Latin terms meaning “net.” At the time, the word “purse” referred to small leather pouches used for carrying money.

 

****Petticoat Lane Market is a fashion and clothing market in Spitalfields, London. It consists of two adjacent street markets. Wentworth Street Market and Middlesex Street Market. Originally populated by Huguenots fleeing persecution in France, Spitalfields became a center for weaving, embroidery and dying. From 1882, a wave of Jewish immigrants fleeing persecution in eastern Europe settled in the area and Spitalfields then became the true heart of the clothing manufacturing district of London. 'The Lane' was always renowned for the 'patter' and showmanship of the market traders. It was also known for being a haven for the unsavoury characters of London’s underworld and was rife with prostitutes during the late Victorian era. Unpopular with the authorities, as it was largely unregulated and in some sense illegal, as recently as the 1930s, police cars and fire engines were driven down ‘The Lane’, with alarm bells ringing, to disrupt the market.

 

*****The first football match to be played at the newly opened Wembley Stadium in April 1923 was between the Bolton Wanderers and West Ham United. This match became known as the White Horse final, and was played just a few days after the completion of the stadium.

 

This cluttered, yet cheerful Edwardian butchers is not all it seems to be at first glance, for it is made up of part of my 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures collection.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The rashers of bacon and tray of diced meat on the counter come from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom. The joints of meat in the background both on the bench and hanging from hooks above it also come from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop.

 

The eggs and the Cornish Ware bowl they are in come from Beautifully handmade Miniatures in Kettering, as does the shiny cash register and Ada’s rather battered wooden basket.

 

Inside the basket there are various foods and cleaning agents which would have been household names in the 1920s, and some of which are still known today including Oxo Stock Cubes, Ty-Phoo Tea, Bisto Gravy Powder and Hudson’s Soap. 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. Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures also made the tin of corned beef to the left of the photo, as can be derived from the “Little Things Food Co.” label.

 

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.

 

In 1837 Robert Spear Hudson opened a shop in High Street, West Bromwich. He started making soap powder in the back of this shop by grinding the coarse bar soap of the day with a mortar and pestle. Before that people had had to make soap flakes themselves. This product became the first satisfactory and commercially successful soap powder. Despite his title of "Manufacturer of Dry Soap" Robert never actually manufactured soap but bought the raw soap from William Gossage of Widnes. The product was popular with his customers and the business expanded rapidly. In the 1850s he employed ten female workers in his West Bromwich factory. In time the factory was too small and too far from the source of his soap so in 1875 he moved his main works to Bank Hall, Liverpool, and his head office to Bootle, while continuing production at West Bromwich. Eventually the business in Merseyside employed just over one thousand people and Robert was able to further develop his flourishing export trade to Australia and New Zealand. The business flourished both because of the rapidly increasing demand for domestic soap products and because of Hudson's unprecedented levels of advertising. He arranged for striking posters to be produced by professional artists (this was before other firms such as Pears Soap and Lever Brothers used similar techniques). The slogan "A little of Hudson's goes a long way" appeared on the coach that ran between Liverpool and York. Horse, steam and electric tramcars bore an advertisement saying "For Washing Clothes. Hudson's soap. For Washing Up". Robert was joined in the business by his son Robert William who succeeded to the business on his father's death. In 1908 he sold the business to Lever Brothers who ran it as a subsidiary enterprise during which time the soap was manufactured at Crosfield's of Warrington. During this time trade names such as Rinso and Omo were introduced. The Hudson name was retained until 1935 when, during a period of rationalisation, the West Bromwich and Bank Hall works were closed.

 

Also in Ada’s basket are some very lifelike looking fruit and vegetables. The apples are made of polymer clay are made by a 1:12 miniature specialist in Germany. The leaves of lettuce are artisan made of very thin sheets of clay and are beautifully detailed. I acquired them from an auction house some twenty years ago as part of a lot made up of miniature artisan food.

 

Edith’s handbag handmade from soft leather is part of a larger collection of hats and bags that I bought from an American miniature collector Marilyn Bickel, including Ada’s tan soft leather handbag seen resting against her basket at the right of the picture.

 

The black umbrella came from an online stockist of 1:12 miniatures on E-Bay.

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 her usual weekly call on her beloved parents. 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 in 1922, Edith’s mother is only laundering a few days a week now. The money she makes from this endeavour she uses for housekeeping to make she and George’s life a little more comfortable, but she is able to hold a little back as pin money* to indulge in one of her joys, collecting pretty china ornaments to decorate their home with.

 

We are in Ada’s front parlour, which is where most of her decorative porcelain finds from different shops, fairs and markets around London are proudly displayed. With busy stylised floral wallpaper and every surface cluttered with ornaments, it can only be described as Victorian in style and it is an example of conscious consumption, rather than qualitative consumption, to demonstrate how prosperous the Watsford family is. Like many others of its kind in Harlesden and elsewhere in London, it is the room least used in the house, reserved for when special guests like the parish minister or wealthy old widow Mrs. Hounslow pay a call. Yet in spite of that, the front parlour’s clutter needs cleaning and dusting, and Edith is helping her mother do so today, all the while regaling her with the story about Lettice’s newest gadget, the wireless.

 

“Oh Mum!” Edith gushes enthusiastically, waving her dust cloth around animatedly. “It was amazing! It’s like having a whole band inside a little box!”

 

“As good as listening to the brass bands that play in the rotunda at King Edward VII’s Park**, Edith love?” Ada asks in amazement.

 

“Every bit as good as them, or the ones in Regent Park, Mum.”

 

“Well I never!” Ada pauses dusting a brightly painted bust of Queen Victoria on the parlour’s sideboard with her feather duster as she contemplates such a contraption. “Fancy that! A band in a box!” she gasps. “And you say it isn’t run by electricity then, Edith love?”

 

“No, it has a battery inside. That’s why it’s called a wireless, Mum.”

 

“Well, what won’t they think of next!”

 

“And the British Broadcasting Company*** plays news as well as music, every day.”

 

“Even on Sundays?”

 

“Even on Sundays, Mum. Miss Lettice says that I’m allowed to listen to it when I’m dusting the drawing room.”

 

“That’s very generous of Miss Chetwynd, Edith. I hope you said thank you to her.”

 

“Oh I did, Mum, but,” Edith pauses for a moment before continuing on a little more disappointedly. “Well, the broadcasts aren’t usually playing when I’m cleaning in there as it’s far too early. They only broadcast for a few hours a day, but Mr. Spencely, that’s Miss Lettice’s chap, says that will change once the wireless catches on. Besides, I don’t see why I can’t listen to it when Miss Lettice is out visiting or down in Wiltshire. What’s the harm?”

 

“Lucky Miss Chetwynd, and lucky you then, Edith love.”

 

“I didn’t think I’d take to it at first. We have enough contraptions in the flat, what with that awful telephone thing ringing away loudly day and night like the devil that it is.” Edith nods dourly.

 

“Well, those telephone contraptions are unnatural!” Ada frowns disapprovingly.

 

“That’s what I say, Mum.”

 

“Who needs a machine to talk into when it’s every bit as easy to send a postcard**** to convey your message? Not that it will because it’s just a toy for the toffs,” Ada scoffs. “But were that telephone thing ever to catch on, it would do our poor mailmen out of jobs.”

 

Edith looks across at where her mother, having picked up the feather duster, is cleaning again. As well as the bust of Queen Victoria there are commemorative plates marking the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1897, coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra in 1902 and King George V and Queen Mary in 1911, as well as a plate featuring King Edward VII which was present from her Aunt Maude to her mother when she took a holiday to Folkstone. “I wonder what she would think of it?”

 

“Who?” Ada asks, pausing and looking across at her daughter, dusting cloth in hand over the tea table.

 

“The old Queen, Mum. I wonder what she’d make of the wireless.”

 

“I wonder what the old Queen would make about a lot of things from the Twentieth Century.” Ada replies. “The world has changed so much, even in the last twenty-two years since she has been gone, god rest her soul. There’s motorcars and lorries replacing horse drawn carriages and carts, and electricity being used more often and by more people these days.”

 

“Not that you have it here, Mum.” Edith adds cheekily, pointing to the three burner gasolier overhead.

 

“I should hope not! It’s unnatural, just like the telephone.” Her eyes grow wide. “I’ll stick with what I know, thank you very much.”

 

“Well, I use electricity at Miss Lettice’s, and I did at Mrs. Plaistow’s, and it hasn’t done me any harm.”

 

“So you think!” Ada wags the feather duster at her daughter, a shower of dust motes flying angrily from her agitation, tumbling through the air of the parlour between them. “You don’t know yet. Some of these things take time to show any ill effects.” She sighs. “But I hope for your sake, not. But going back to the old Queen and the music in a box, I’d like to think she’d like it.”

 

“Do you think, Mum? She was such an old lady.”

  

“She wasn’t always an old lady, you know, Edith love! Like all of us, she was young once, too.”

 

“It’s hard to believe.”

 

“That’s because you were still a babe in nappies, not even one, when she died, so all you know are images of her late in life. Even when I was young, the Queen was still a distant figure, although she was popular around the time of her Diamond Jubilee. But you listen to my Grandma, your Great Grandma, and she’d tell you different. Before her husband died, the Queen was ever so interested in new things. She used to take the train, when it was new and experimental, all over the country, and she took up photography when it was new. So why shouldn’t she have been interested in the wireless box. Tell me, is it easy to operate?”

 

“Oh yes Mum!” Edith assures her mother. “There is a knob to turn it on or off, a knob to adjust the volume, and a knob to tune it in, but once you have the radio station, you don’t need to tune it again. It does make a nasty noise when you first turn it on, but that’s only because it has valves inside and they have tow arm up. That only takes a minute or two, and then you have beautiful music, or news reports or whatever.”

 

“Well, it does sound splendid, Edith love.”

 

“Frank says that eventually everyone will have a wireless.”

 

“Does he now, Edith love?” Ada says with a snort and a doubtful smile.

 

“He does, Mum!”

 

“He sounds like a bit of a dreamer, does your Frank.” Ada replies. “Not that there is anything wrong with having dreams, mind you. We all have to dream of something.”

 

“Yes but Frank says that now is the time for the working man, and woman too.”

 

“I say, Edith love,” Ada asks in a worried voice. “He’s not one of those Communists is he? You know, overthrow the King and government and create anarchy like they did in Russia with the poor Tsar?”

 

“No Mum!” Edith laughs. “Like I’d step out with a Communist. No, Frank just thinks with all the new inventions being developed, wages increasing and things getting a bit more affordable for everyone, that it’s a better time to be a working person.”

 

“Well, I have to agree that things are getting better for us as working people. We live better quality lives, but I don’t think it is ‘our time’ as you say he says. This wireless thing may be wonderful, but it’s a rich man’s toy, just like the telephone contraption.”

 

“He believes in the emancipation of women, Mum.” Edith adds hopefully.

 

“Ahh, now on that point I think your Frank and I agree. Which is more than can be said for her.” Ada taps the crown on the bust of Queen Victoria. “I’m glad your Frank believes in the vote for all of us. Let’s hope it happens in both our lifetimes.*****”

 

The two ladies carry on dusting in silence for a short while before Ada asks, “Thinking of Frank, are you any closer to meeting his grandmother?”

 

“I did mention it to Frank when we went down to the Angel down in Rotherhithe on New Year’s Eve, Mum.”

 

“And what did he say, Edith love?”

 

“Well, he told me that he’s told her about me.”

 

“That’s good.”

 

“He says that she might be a bit jealous of me usurping her.”

 

“Usurping her? What on earth does that mean, Edith love?” Ada asks in alarm. “It sounds like you’re trying to hurt her!”

 

“It means to take the place of someone.” Edith replies proudly. “Frank taught me that.”

 

“Did he indeed.” Ada cocks an eyebrow.

 

“Anyway, once she’s adjusted herself to the idea of me being in Frank’s life, he’ll ask me around for tea at her house in Upton Park.”

 

“And when’s that likely to be?” Ada asks with concern.

 

“In a few weeks Frank says.” Edith replies brightly. “She’s apparently already starting to come around to the idea.”

 

“Well that is good to hear, Edith love. I respect that your Frank wants to do things properly and introduce you to his family first, but your Dad and I are most anxious to meet him, you know.”

 

“Patience Mum! If I can wait, you can too. It will happen soon enough.”

 

“Enough of your cheek, young lady!” Ada retorts playfully. “I’ve the patience of a saint managing you and your brother when you were little!”

 

“We weren’t that bad, were we Mum?”

 

“Don’t you believe it! Your brother wanted to do anything his big sister did.” Ada chuckles, looking at the two family photos on the mantlepiece: one with George and Ada and Edith and one with the three of them and Edith’s little brother, Bert. Suddenly, she gasps. “I almost forgot! I got a letter from your brother the other day. It’s on the mantle in the kitchen. Goodness knows I’d forget my head if it weren’t screwed on!” She taps her head lightly three times with her fist. “It says he should be home soon, and he says he’s got something for you from his travels. Come on, Edith love. It’s time we had a nice cup of tea anyway. Let’s go read it over a pot, eh? Then we’ll come back and finish the dusting.”

 

Edith and Ada both put down their cleaning tools and laughing and continuing to chat jovially, they walk out of the front parlour and head down the short corridor to the kitchen at the back of the house.

 

*Originating in Seventeenth Century England, the term pin money first meant “an allowance of money given by a husband to his wife for her personal expenditures. Married women, who typically lacked other sources of spending money, tended to view an allowance as something quite desirable. By the Twentieth Century, the term had come to mean a small sum of money, whether an allowance or earned, for spending on inessentials, separate and in addition to the housekeeping money a wife might have to spend.

 

**King Edward VII Park is a large park in Willesden between Uffington Road, All Souls Avenue and Doyle Gardens. It features a large recreational ground, a sports ground, a rotunda, and although now gone, had one of London’s most popular lidos, an outdoor pool, which opened in 1911, with the adjoining chalet café.

 

***The British Broadcasting Company, as the BBC was originally called, was formed on the 18th of October 1922 by a group of leading wireless manufacturers including Marconi. Daily broadcasting by the BBC began in Marconi's London studio, 2LO, in the Strand, on November the 14th, 1922. John Reith, a thirty-three-year-old Scottish engineer, was appointed General Manager of the BBC at the end of 1922. Following the closure of numerous amateur stations, the BBC started its first daily radio service in London – 2LO. After much argument, news was supplied by an agency, and music drama and “talks” filled the airwaves for only a few hours a day. It wasn't long before radio could be heard across the nation, especially when radio stations were set up outside of London, like on the 6th of March when the BBC first broadcast from Glasgow via station 5SC.

 

****One hundred years ago, postcards were the most common and easiest way to communicate with loved ones not only across countries whilst on holidays, but across neighbourhoods on a daily basis with the minutiae of life on them. This is because unlike today where mail is delivered on a daily basis, there were several deliveries done a day. Postcards were cheap and plentiful, and readily available, so as long as you knew how to write and how to read, it was a cost effective way of communicating your intentions. At the height of the postcard mania in 1903, London residents could have as many as twelve separate visits from the mailman in a single day, excluding Sundays. This means that people in the early Twentieth Century amassed vast collections of picture postcards which today are highly collectible depending upon their theme.

 

*****It was not until the Equal Franchise Act of 1928 that women over the age of twenty-one were able to vote in Britain and women finally achieved the same voting rights as men.

 

This cluttered sideboard may look realistic to you, however it is in fact made up of pieces from my 1:12 miniatures collection, including pieces from my childhood.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The bust of Queen Victoria was made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. It has been hand painted by me.

 

The commemorative plates of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897, the Coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra in 1902 and the Coronation of King George V and Queen Mary in 1911 are all made by the British miniature artist Rachel Munday. The plate on the far left is a piece of souvenir ware from around 1905 and is made of very finely pressed tin.

 

The feather duster on the parlour sideboard I made myself using fledgling feathers (very spring) which I picked up off the lawn one day thinking they would come in handy in my miniatures collection sometime. I bound them with thread to the handle which is made from a fancy ended toothpick!

 

The little white vase to the far right of the photo is mid Victorian and would once have been part of a tiny doll’s tea service. It is Parian Ware. Parian Ware is a type of biscuit porcelain imitating marble. It was developed around 1845 by the Staffordshire pottery manufacturer Mintons, and named after Paros, the Greek island renowned for its fine-textured, white Parian marble, used since antiquity for sculpture.

 

The ‘home sweet home’ embroidery and the painting on the wall come from online shops who sell dollhouse miniatures, as does the Art Nouveau vase on the left hand side of the picture.

 

The sideboard is a piece I bought as part of a larger drawing room suite of dolls house furniture from a department store when I was a teenager.

Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.

 

Today however we are not in Lettice’s flat, and whilst we have not travelled that far physically across London, the tough streets, laneways and blind alleys of Poplar in London’s East End is a world away from Lettice’s rarefied and privileged world. On Tuesday Mrs. Boothby, Lettice’s charwoman*, discovered that Edith, Lettice’s maid, didn’t have a sewing machine when the Cockney cleaner found the young maid cutting out the pieces for a new frock. Mrs. Boothby made overtures towards Edith, inviting her to her home in Poplar in London’s East End with an air of mystery, saying she might be able to help her with her predicament of a sewing machine.

 

Friends of Lettice, newlyweds Margot and Dickie Channon, have been gifted a Recency country “cottage residence” called ‘Chi an Treth’ (Cornish for ‘beach house’) in Penzance as a wedding gift by the groom’s father, the Marquess of Taunton. Margot in her desire to turn ‘Chi an Treth’ from a dark Regency house to a more modern country house flooded with light, has commissioned Lettice to help redecorate some of the rooms in a lighter and more modern style, befitting a modern couple like the Channons. Lettice has decamped to Penzance for a week where she is overseeing the painting and papering of ‘Chi an Treth’s’ drawing room, dining room and main reception room, before fitting it out with a lorryload of new and repurposed furnishings, artwork and objets d’arte that she has had sent down weeks prior to her arrival. In her mistress’ absence, Edith has more free time on her hands, and so she was able to agree to Mrs. Boothby’s mysterious invitation. Even though she is happy with her current arrangement to take any items she wants to sew home to her parent’s house in Harlesden, where she can use her mother’s Singer** sewing machine on her days off. The opportunity of gaining access to a sewing machine of her own is too good for Edith to refuse.

 

Now the two women walk through the narrow streets of Poplar, passing along walkways, some concrete, some made of wooden planks and some just dirt, between tenements of two and three stories high. The streets they traverse are dim with the weakening afternoon light from the autumn sky blocked out by the overhanging upper floors of the buildings and the strings of laundry hanging limply along lines between them. Although Edith is not unfamiliar with the part of Whitechapel around Petticoat Lane*** where she shops for second hand clothes to alter and for haberdashery to do them, she still feels nervous in the unfamiliar maze of streets that Mrs. Boothby is guiding her down, and she sticks closely next to or directly behind the old Cockney char. The air is filled with a mixture of strong odours: paraffin oil, boiled cabbage and fried food intermixed with the pervasive stench of damp and unwashed bodies and clothes. Self-consciously, Edith pulls her three quarter length coat more tightly around her in an effort to protect herself from the stench.

 

“Below!” comes a Cockney female voice from above as a sash window groans in protest as it is opened.

 

“Ere! Look out, Edith dearie!” Mrs. Boothby exclaims, grabbing Edith by the arm and roughly pulling the maid out of the way, thrusting her behind her.

 

A moment later the air is filled with the harsh sound of slops splattering against the concrete path, and a pool of dirty liquid stains the concrete a dark muddy brown as it slowly dribbles down into a shallow drain that runs down the middle of the laneway.

 

“Wouldn’t want your nice clothes to get spoilt nah, would we dearie.” Mrs. Boothby says as she turns and smiles into Edith’s startled face.

 

“Was that?” Edith begins but doesn’t finish her question as she peers at the puddle draining away, leaving lumps on the path.

 

“I shouldn’t look too closely if I were you, dearie.” Mrs. Boothby says kindly in a matter-of-fact way. “If you ‘ave to ask, you’re better off not knowin’. That’s my opinion, anyway. Come on. Not much further nah.”

 

“You… you will take me home, won’t you Mrs. Boothby?” Edith asks a little nervously as they continue their progress down the lane which she notices is getting narrower and darker as they go.

 

“Course I will, dearie! You can rely on old Ida Boothby. I know these streets like the back of my ‘and. Youse perfectly safe wiv me.”

 

The laneway ends suddenly, and Edith is blinded for a moment by bright sunlight as they step out into a rookery**** with two storey Victorian tenements of grey stone and red brick either side of a concrete courtyard with a narrow drain running down its centre. The original builders or owners of the tenements obviously have meant for the sad buildings to be at least a little homely, with shutters painted a Brunswick green hanging to either side of the ground floor windows. Looking up, Edith notices several window boxes of brightly coloured geraniums and other flowers suspended from some of the upper floor windowsills. Women of different ages walk in and out of the open front doors, or sit in them on stools doing mending, knitting or peeling potatoes, all chatting to one another, whilst children skip and play on the concrete of the courtyard.

 

“Welcome to Merrybrook Place,” Mrs. Boothby says with a hint of pride in her voice. “My ‘ome. Though Lawd knows why they called it that. I ain’t never seen no brook, merry or otherwise, runnin’ dahn ‘ere, unless it’s the slops from the privvies dahn the end.” She points to the end of the rookery where, overlooked by some older tenements of brick and wooden shingling most likely from the early Nineteenth Century, a couple of ramshackle privies stand. “So just watch your step, Edith dearie. We don’t want you steppin’ your nice shoes in nuffink nasty.” She gives her a warm smile. “Come on.”

 

As they start walking up the rookery, one woman wrapped in a paisley shawl stands in her doorway staring at Edith with undisguised curiosity and perhaps a little jealousy as she casts her critical gaze over her simple, yet smart, black coat and dyed straw hat decorated with silk flowers and feathers.

 

“Wanna paint a picture Mrs. Friedmann?” Mrs. Boothby calls out hotly to her, challenging her open stare with a defensive one of her own. “Might last you longer, your royal ‘ighness!” She makes a mock over exaggerated curtsey towards her, hitching up the hem of her workday skirts.

 

The woman tilts her head up slightly, sniffs in disgust and looks down her nose with spite at both Edith and the Cockney charwoman before muttering something in a language Edith doesn’t need to speak to understand. Turning on her heel, the woman slams her door sharply behind her, the noise echoing off the hard surfaces of the court.

 

“Who was that, Mrs. Boothby?” Edith asks nervously.

 

“Lawd love you dearie,” chortles Mrs. Boothby, the action resulting on one of her fruity hacking coughs that seem remarkably loud from such a diminutive figure. “That’s that nasty local Yid***** matchmaker what I told you ‘bout.” Raising her voice she continues, speaking loudly at the closed door. “Golda Friedmann goes around wiv ‘er nose in the air wrapped up in that fancy paisley shawl actin’ like she was the Queen of Russia ‘erself. But she ain’t! She’s no better than the rest of us.”

 

As Mrs. Boothby trudges on up the rookery another doorway opens and an old woman with a figure that shows many years of childbirth steps out, dressed in a black skirt and an old fashioned but pretty floral print Edwardian high necked blouse. “Afternoon Ida.”

 

“Oh! Afternoon Lil!” Mrs. Boothby replies. “Oh Lil! I got somefink in ‘ere for you.” She opens up her capacious blue beaded bag and fossicks around making the beads rattle before withdrawing a couple of thin pieces of soap, one bar a bright buttercup yellow, a second pink and the last white. “’Ere. For the kiddies.”

 

“Oh fanks ever so, Ida!” the other woman replies, gratefully accepting the pieces of soap in her careworn hands.

 

“Edith,” Mrs. Boothby calls. “This ‘ere is my neighbour, Mrs. Conway.” A couple of cheeky little faces with sallow cheeks, but bright eyes, poke out from behind Mrs. Conway’s skirts and smile up shyly at Edith with curiosity. “Hullo kiddies.” Mrs. Boothby says to them. “Nah sweeties from me today. Sorry. Mrs. Conway, this ‘ere is Miss Watsford, what works for one of my ladies up in Mayfair.”

 

“Oh ‘ow do you do?” Mrs. Conway says, wiping her hands down her skirts before reaching out a hand to Edith.

 

“How do you do, Mrs. Conway.” Edith replies with a gentle smile, taking her hand, and feeling her rough flesh rub against her own as the old woman’s bony fingers entwine hers.

 

“Well, must be getting on, Lil,” Mrs. Boothby says. “Ta-ta.”

 

“Ta-ra, Ida. Ta-ra Miss Watsford.” Mrs. Conway replies before turning back and shooing the children inside good naturedly.

 

“Goodbye Mrs, Conway. It was nice to meet you.” Edith says.

 

At the next door, one painted Brunswick green like the shutters, Mrs. Boothby stops and takes out a large string of keys from her bag and promptly finds the one for her own front door. As the key engages with the lock the door groans in protest as it slowly opens. The old woman says, “Just stand ‘ere in the doorway, Edith dearie, while I’ll open the curtains.”

 

She disappears into the gloom, which vanishes a moment later as with a flourish, she flings back some heavy red velvet curtains, flooding the room with light from the front window. It takes a moment for Edith’s eyes to adjust as the old Cockney woman stands for a moment in the pool of light, so brilliant after the gloom, surrounded by a floating army of illuminated dust motes tumbling over one another in the air. As her eyes adjust, Edith discerns things within the tenement front room: a kitchen table not too unlike her own at Cavendish Mews, a couple of sturdy ladderback chairs, an old fashioned black leaded stove and a sink in the corner.

 

“Close the door behind you and come on in, dearie. The ‘ouse is still warmish from this mornin’.” Mrs. Boothby says kindly as she tosses her beaded handbag carelessly onto the table where it lands with a thud and the jangle of beads. “Take a seat and I’ll get the range goin’ and pop the kettle on for a nice cup of Rosie-Lee******! I dunno ‘bout you, but I’m parched.”

 

“Yes, thank you, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith replies as she closes the door.

 

Shutting out the unpleasant mixture of odours outside with the closing of the door, Edith is comforted by the smells of carbolic soap and lavender. Looking about she notices a couple of little muslin bags hanging from the curtains.

 

“Good. Nah, give me your ‘at ‘n coat and I’ll ‘ang them up.” Mrs. Boothby says. Noticing Edith’s gaze upon the pouches she explains. “Lavender to ‘elp keep the moths and the smells from the privy at bay.”

 

“Oh.” Edith replies laconically.

 

As Mrs. Boothby hangs up Edith’s coat and hat as well as her own on a hook behind the door and then bustles about stoking up the embers of the fire left in the stove, Edith says, “Mrs. Conway seems like a nice person to have as your neighbour, Mrs. Boothby.”

 

“She’s a good un, that one. She takes care of all the little kiddies round ‘n ‘bout while their parents is at work.” Mrs. Boothby throws some coal into the stove and shoves it with a poker. “She’s got an ‘eart of gold she does. I owe ‘er a lot. She does ‘er best by them kiddies. Gives ‘em a meal made outta what she can, which for some might be the only meal they get. And she gives ‘em a good bath too when she can. That’s why I give ‘er the left over soap ends from the ‘ouses I go to.”

 

“Oh I’m sorry Mrs. Boothby. I always take Miss Lettice’s soap ends to Mum to grate up and make soap flakes from for washing.”

 

“Ahh, don’t worry dearie. I gets plenty from some of the other ‘ouses I go to. Some of ‘em even throws out bars of soap what’s been barely used cos they get cracked and they don’t like the look of ‘em no more. Some of them ladies up the West End don’t know just ‘ow lucky they is to ‘ave as many bars of soap as they like. Nah, you keep takin’ Miss Lettice’s ends to your mum. So long as they’s bein’ used, I’m ‘appy. Waste not, want not, I always say.”

 

With nothing to do whilst the older woman goes about filling the large kettle with water from the sink in the corner of the room, Edith has more time to look at her surroundings. The floor is made of wooden boards whilst the walls are covered in a rather dark green wallpaper featuring old fashioned Art Nouveau patterns. The house must one have had owners or tenants with grander pretentions than Mrs. Boothby for the stove is jutting out of a much larger fireplace surround, which although chipped and badly discoloured from years of coal dust, cooking and cigarette smoke, is marble. However, it is the profusion of ornaments around the small room that catches the young girl’s eye. Along the mantle of the original fireplace stand a piece of Staffordshire, a prettily painted cow creamer, a jug in the shape of a duck coming out of an egg and a teapot in the shape of Queen Victoria. Turning around behind her to where Mrs. Boothby gathers a pretty blue and white china teapot, some cups, saucers and a sugar bowl, she sees a large dresser that is cluttered with more decorative plates, teapots, jugs, tins and a cheese dish in the shape of a cottage.

 

“Not what you was expectin’ I’ll warrant.” Mrs, Boothby remarks with a knowing chuckle that causes her to emit yet another of her throaty coughs.

 

“Oh no Mrs. Boothby!” Edith replies, blushing with shame at being caught out staring about her so shamelessly. “I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I mean… I had no expectations.”

 

“Well, it’s nuffink special, but this is my ‘aven of calm and cleanliness away from the dirty world out there.” She points through the window where, when Edith turns her head, she can see several scrawny children playing marbles on the concrete of the courtyard. “And it’s ‘ome to me.”

 

“Oh yes, it’s lovely and clean and cheerful, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith assures her hostess. “No, I was just admiring all your pretty crockery. It reminds me of my Mum’s kitchen, actually. She is always collecting pretty china and pottery.”

 

“Well, who was it what told you to go dahn to the Caledonian Markets******* to buy a gift for your mum?” the old woman says with a cheeky wink. “Me that who!” She pokes her chest proudly, before coughing heavily again.

 

“So did you get all these from the Caledonian Markets then, Mrs. Boothby?” Edith asks, looking around again.

 

“Well, most, but not all. I got meself an art gallery from the Caledonian Markets, for when I washes the dishes.” She points to two cheap prints of classic paintings in equally cheap wooden frames hanging on the walls above the little sink. “Better than starin’ at a blank wall, even if it’s covered in wallpaper. Course, some a them ladies up the West End is awfully wasteful wiv much more than soap, and just like them soap ends, I get my share. Somethin’ a bit old fashioned or got a tiny chip in it and they’s throwin’ it out like it was a piece of rubbish, so I offer ta take it. Take that nice cow up there,” She points to the cow creamer on the mantle. “The lid got lost somewhere, so the lady from Belgravia what owned it told ‘er maid to throw it out, so I said I’d take it instead. That,” She points to the Staffordshire statue. “Was one of a pair, what the uvver ‘alf got broken, so it was being chucked, so I took it. I don’t care if it don’t ‘ave the uvver ‘alf. I like it as it is. It’s pretty. The Queen Victoria teapot was getting’ chucked out just ‘cos the old Queen died, and King Bertie was takin’ ‘er place. Well, I wasn’t ‘avin’ none of that. Poor old Queen! I said I’d ‘ave it if no-one else wanted it. And this teapot,” She withdraws the pretty blue and white china teapot from atop the stove. “This was just bein’ thrown out ‘cos it’s old and they’s no bits of the set left but this. But there ain’t nuffink wrong wiv it, and it must be at least a ‘undred years old!”

 

Mrs. Boothby pulls out a gilt edged blue and white cake plate which she puts on the table along with the tea cups, sugar bowl and milk jug. She then goes to the dresser and pulls down a pretty tin decorated with Art Nouveau ladies from which she takes several pieces of shortbread, which she places on the cake plate.

 

“That’s very lovely, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith points to a teapot in the shape of a rabbit sitting in a watering can. “It looks rather like Peter Rabbit.”

 

“Ahh… my Ken loves that too.” Edith’s ears prick at the mention of someone named Ken, but she doesn’t have time to ask who he is before Mrs. Boothby continues, “That bunny rabbit teapot is one of the few pieces I got what ‘as a sad story what goes wiv it. Poor lady what I cleaned for up in St. James’, it were ‘er baby’s, from the nursery, you know?” Edith nods in understanding. “Well, ‘e died. ‘E was a weak little mite ‘e were, ever since ‘e was born, and my poor lady was so upset when ‘e died that she got rid of everyfink in the nursery. She didn’t want nuffink to remind her of that little baby. So, I brought it ‘ome wiv me.” She sighs. “Well, the kettle’s boiled now, so ‘ow about a cup of Rosie-Lee, dearie?”

 

A short while later, Edith and Mrs. Boothby are seated around Mrs. Boothby’s kitchen table with the elegant Regency teapot, some blue and white china cups and the plate of shortbreads before them.

 

“Oh I tell you Edith dearie, I’m dying for a fag!” Mrs Boothby says. She starts fossicking through her capacious beaded bag before withdrawing her cigarette papers, Swan Vestas and tin of Player’s Navy Cut. Rolling herself a cigarette she lights it with a satisfied sigh and one more of her fruity coughs, dropping the match into a black ashtray that sits on the table full of cigarette butts. Mrs. Boothby settles back happily in her ladderback chair with her cigarette in one hand and reaches out, taking up a shortbread biscuit with the other. Blowing out a plume of blue smoke that tumbles through the air around them, the old woman continues. “Nah, about this sewin’ machine. My Ken’ll be ‘ome soon, I ‘ope. ‘E’s a bit late today.”

 

“Mrs. Boothby, who is Ken?” Edith asks with a questioning look on her face.

 

Just as Mrs. Boothby is about to answer her, she gasps as she hears a rather loud and jolly whistle.

 

“Well, speak of the devil, ‘ere ‘e comes nah!”

 

The front door of the tenement flies open and the space is instantly filled by the bulk of a big man in a flat cap with a large parcel wrapped in newspaper tied with twine under his right arm.

 

*A charwoman, chargirl, or char, jokingly charlady, is an old-fashioned occupational term, referring to a paid part-time worker who comes into a house or other building to clean it for a few hours of a day or week, as opposed to a maid, who usually lives as part of the household within the structure of domestic service. In the 1920s, chars usually did all the hard graft work that paid live-in domestics would no longer do as they looked for excuses to leave domestic service for better paying work in offices and factories.

 

**The Singer Corporation is an American manufacturer of consumer sewing machines, first established as I. M. Singer & Co. in 1851 by Isaac M. Singer with New York lawyer Edward C. Clark. Best known for its sewing machines, it was renamed Singer Manufacturing Company in 1865, then the Singer Company in 1963. In 1867, the Singer Company decided that the demand for their sewing machines in the United Kingdom was sufficiently high to open a local factory in Glasgow on John Street. The Vice President of Singer, George Ross McKenzie selected Glasgow because of its iron making industries, cheap labour, and shipping capabilities. Demand for sewing machines outstripped production at the new plant and by 1873, a new larger factory was completed on James Street, Bridgeton. By that point, Singer employed over two thousand people in Scotland, but they still could not produce enough machines. In 1882 the company purchased forty-six acres of farmland in Clydebank and built an even bigger factory. With nearly a million square feet of space and almost seven thousand employees, it was possible to produce on average 13,000 machines a week, making it the largest sewing machine factory in the world. The Clydebank factory was so productive that in 1905, the U.S. Singer Company set up and registered the Singer Manufacturing Company Ltd. in the United Kingdom.

 

***Petticoat Lane Market is a fashion and clothing market in Spitalfields, London. It consists of two adjacent street markets. Wentworth Street Market and Middlesex Street Market. Originally populated by Huguenots fleeing persecution in France, Spitalfields became a center for weaving, embroidery and dying. From 1882, a wave of Jewish immigrants fleeing persecution in eastern Europe settled in the area and Spitalfields then became the true heart of the clothing manufacturing district of London. 'The Lane' was always renowned for the 'patter' and showmanship of the market traders. It was also known for being a haven for the unsavoury characters of London’s underworld and was rife with prostitutes during the late Victorian era. Unpopular with the authorities, as it was largely unregulated and in some sense illegal, as recently as the 1930s, police cars and fire engines were driven down ‘The Lane’, with alarm bells ringing, to disrupt the market.

 

****A rookery is a dense collection of housing, especially in a slum area. The rookeries created in Victorian times in London’s East End were notorious for their cheapness, filth and for being overcrowded.

 

*****The word Yid is a Jewish ethnonym of Yiddish origin. It is used as an autonym within the Ashkenazi Jewish community, and also used as slang. When pronounced in such a way that it rhymes with did by non-Jews, it is commonly intended as a pejorative term. It is used as a derogatory epithet, and as an alternative to, the English word 'Jew'. It is uncertain when the word began to be used in a pejorative sense by non-Jews, but some believe it started in the late Nineteenth or early Twentieth Century when there was a large population of Jews and Yiddish speakers concentrated in East London, gaining popularity in the 1930s when Oswald Mosley developed a strong following in the East End of London.

 

******Rosie-Lee is Cockney slang for tea, and it is one of the most well-known of all Cockney rhyming slang.

 

*******The original Caledonian Market, renown for antiques, buried treasure and junk, was situated in in a wide cobblestoned area just off the Caledonian Road in Islington in 1921 when this story is set. Opened in 1855 by Prince Albert, and originally called the Metropolitan Meat Markets, it was supplementary to the Smithfield Meat Market. Arranged in a rectangle, the market was dominated by a forty six metre central clock tower. By the early Twentieth Century, with the diminishing trade in live animals, a bric-a-brac market developed and flourished there until after the Second World War when it moved to Bermondsey, south of the Thames, where it flourishes today. The Islington site was developed in 1967 into the Market Estate and an open green space called Caledonian Park. All that remains of the original Caledonian Markets is the wonderful Victorian clock tower.

 

I would just like to point out that I wrote this story some weeks ago, long before The Queen became ill and well before her passing. However it seems apt that this story of all, which I planned weeks ago to upload today as part of the Chetwyn Mews narrative, mentions the passing of The Queen (albeit Queen Victoria). I wish to dedicate this image and chapter to our own Queen of past and glorious times Queen Elizabeth II (1926 – 2022). Long did she reign over us, happy and glorious. God bless The Queen.

 

This cluttered, yet cheerful domestic scene is not all it seems to be at first glance, for it is made up of part of my 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures collection. Some pieces come from my own childhood. Other items I acquired as an adult through specialist online dealers and artists who specialise in 1:12 miniatures.

 

Mrs. Boothby’s beloved collection of ornaments come from various different sources. The Staffordshire cow (one of a pair) and the cow creamer that stand on the mantlepiece have been hand made and painted by Welsh miniature ceramist Rachel Williams who has her own studio, V&R Miniatures, in Powys. If you look closely, you will see that the Staffordshire cow actually has a smile on its face! Although you can’t notice it in the photo, the cow creamer has its own removable lid which is minute in size! The duck coming from the egg jug on the mantle, the rooster jug, the cottage ware butter dish, Peter Rabbit in the watering can tea pot and the cottage ware teapot to its right on the dresser were all made by French ceramicist and miniature artisan Valerie Casson. All the pieces are authentic replicas of real pieces made by different china companies. For example, the cottage ware teapot has been decorated authentically and matches in perfect detail its life-size Price Washington ‘Ye Olde Cottage Teapot’ counterparts. The top part of the thatched roof and central chimney form the lid, just like the real thing. Valerie Casson is renown for her meticulously crafted and painted miniature ceramics. The Queen Victoria teapot on the mantlepiece and the teapot on the dresser to the left of the Peter Rabbit teapot come from Mick and Marie’s Miniatures in the United Kingdom. All the other plates on the dresser came from various online miniature stockists through E-Bay, as do the teapot, plate and cups on Mrs. Boothby’s kitchen table.

 

Mrs. Boothby’s picture gallery in the corner of the room come from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Shop in the United Kingdom.

 

Mrs. Boothby’s beaded handbag on the table is also a 1:12 artisan miniature. Hand crocheted, it is interwoven with antique blue glass beads that are two millimetres in diameter. The beads of the handle are three millimetres in length. It came from Karen Ladybug Miniatures in the United Kingdom.

 

Spilling from her bag are her Player’s Navy Cut cigarette tin and Swan Vesta matches, which are 1:12 miniatures hand made by Jonesy’s Miniatures in England. The black ashtray is also an artisan piece, the bae of which is filled with “ash”. The tray as well as having grey ash in it, also has a 1:12 cigarette which rests on its lip (it is affixed there). Made by Nottingham based tobacconist manufacturer John Player and Sons, Player’s Medium Navy Cut was the most popular by far of the three Navy Cut brands (there was also Mild and Gold Leaf, mild being today’s rich flavour). Two thirds of all the cigarettes sold in Britain were Player’s and two thirds of these were branded as Player’s Medium Navy Cut. In January 1937, Player’s sold nearly 3.5 million cigarettes (which included 1.34 million in London). Production continued to grow until at its peak in the late 1950s, Player’s was employing 11,000 workers (compared to 5,000 in 1926) and producing 15 brands of pipe tobacco and 11 brands of cigarettes. Nowadays the brands “Player” and “John Player Special” are owned and commercialised by Imperial Brands (formerly the Imperial Tobacco Company). Swan Vestas is a brand name for a popular brand of ‘strike-anywhere’ matches. Shorter than normal pocket matches they are particularly popular with smokers and have long used the tagline ‘the smoker’s match’ although this has been replaced by the prefix ‘the original’ on the current packaging. Swan Vestas matches are manufactured under the House of Swan brand, which is also responsible for making other smoking accessories such as cigarette papers, flints and filter tips. The matches are manufactured by Swedish Match in Sweden using local, sustainably grown aspen. The Swan brand began in 1883 when the Collard & Kendall match company in Bootle on Merseyside near Liverpool introduced ‘Swan wax matches’. These were superseded by later versions including ‘Swan White Pine Vestas’ from the Diamond Match Company. These were formed of a wooden splint soaked in wax. They were finally christened ‘Swan Vestas’ in 1906 when Diamond merged with Bryant and May and the company enthusiastically promoted the Swan brand. By the 1930s ‘Swan Vestas’ had become ‘Britain’s best-selling match’.

 

The meagre foodstuffs on Mrs. Boothby’s shelf represent items not unusually found in poorer households across Britain. Before the Second World War, the British populace consumed far more sugar than we do today, partially for the poor because it was cheap and helped give people energy when their diets were lacking good nutritious foods. Therefore finding a tin of treacle, some preserved fruit or jam, and no fresh fruits or vegetables was not an unusual sight in a lower class home. All the tined foodstuffs, with the exception of the tin of S.P.C. peaches, are 1:12 size artisan miniatures made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire, with great attention to detail paid to their labels and the shapes of their jars and cans. The S.P.C. tin of peaches comes from Shepherd’s Miniatures in the United Kingdom. S.P.C. is an Australian brand that still exists to this day. In 1917 a group of fruit growers in Victoria’s Goulburn Valley decided to form a cooperative which they named the Shepperton Fruit Preserving Company. The company began operations in February 1918, canning pears, peaches and nectarines under the brand name of S.P.C. On the 31st of January 1918 the manager of the Shepparton Fruit Preserving Company announced that canning would begin on the following Tuesday and that the operation would require one hundred and fifty girls or women and thirty men. In the wake of the Great War, it was hoped that “the launch of this new industry must revive drooping energies” and improve the economic circumstances of the region. The company began to pay annual bonuses to grower-shareholders by 1929, and the plant was updated and expanded. The success of S.P.C. was inextricably linked with the progress of the town and the wider Goulburn Valley region. In 1936 the company packed twelve million cans and was the largest fruit cannery in the British empire. Through the Second World War the company boomed. The product range was expanded to include additional fruits, jam, baked beans and tinned spaghetti and production reached more than forty-three million cans a year in the 1970s. From financial difficulties caused by the 1980s recession, SPC returned once more to profitability, merging with Ardmona and buying rival company Henry Jones IXL. S.P.C. was acquired by Coca Cola Amatil in 2005 and in 2019 sold to a private equity group known as Shepparton Partners Collective.

 

The rather worn and beaten looking enamelled bread bin and colander in the typical domestic Art Deco design and kitchen colours of the 1920s, cream and green, which have been aged on purpose, are artisan pieces I acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom.

 

The various bowls, cannisters and dishes, the kettle and the Brown Betty teapot I have acquired from various online miniatures stockists throughout the United Kingdom, America and Australia. A Brown Betty is a type of teapot, round and with a manganese brown glaze known as Rockingham glaze. In the Victorian era, when tea was at its peak of popularity, tea brewed in the Brown Betty was considered excellent. This was attributed to the design of the pot which allowed the tea leaves more freedom to swirl around as the water was poured into the pot, releasing more flavour with less bitterness.

 

The black Victorian era stove and the ladderback chair on the left of the table and the small table directly behind it are all miniature pieces I have had since I was a child. The ladderback chair on the right came from a deceased estate of a miniatures collector in Sydney. The Welsh dresser came from Babette’s Miniatures, who have been making miniature dolls’ furnishings since the late Eighteenth Century. The dresser has plate grooves in it to hold plates in place, just like a real dresser would.

 

The grey marbleised fireplace behind the stove and the trough sink in the corner of the kitchen come from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Miniatures in the United Kingdom.

 

The green wallpaper is an authentic replica of real Art Nouveau wallpaper from the first decade of the Twentieth Century which I have printed onto paper. The floorboards are a print of a photo taken of some floorboards that I scaled to 1:12 size to try and maintain a realistic look.

Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.

 

Today however, we have headed north-west from Cavendish Mews, across Marylebone, past Regent’s Park, the London Zoo and Lords Cricket Ground to the affluent and leafy residential streets of nearby St. John’s Wood. It is here that Lettice’s Embassy Club coterie friends Minnie Palmerston and her husband Charles reside in a neatly painted two storey early Victorian townhouse on Acacia Road that formerly belonged to Charles Palmerston’s maternal grandparents, Lord and Lady Arundel. Lettice has been commissioned to redecorate their dining room, after Minnie decided to have a go at it herself with disastrous results.

 

The day is bright and sunny as the weather starts to turn to warmer weather, and the street is quiet with only the footsteps of perambulating neighbours enjoying the good weather and occasional bark of a dog, which blend with the distant rumble of traffic from busy Finchley Road in the distance as Lettice strides across the road and walks up the eight steps that lead up to Minnie’s black painted front door. She depresses the doorbell which echoes through the long hallway inside and waits. Moments later, there is the sound of unhurried footsteps in the hallway that echo with authority as they approach.

 

The door is opened by a tall middle-aged woman wearing the blue and white striped print dress that is the morning uniform of many women in service around the upper-class houses of London. She wears a crisp white apron over the high buttoned frock, and her pale and slightly bony face framed by dark wavy hair appears from beneath a stiffly starched and goffered morning maid’s cap.

 

“Good morning, Madam.” the maid says in an Irish brogue, her face changing dramatically as she smiles down at Lettice.

 

Given the unfortunate nickname ‘Monstrous Minnie’ by Lettice’s old childhood chum Gerald, also a member of the aristocracy and of her Embassy Club coterie, Minnie has the propensity to have fits of histrionics, often ending in her yelling, crying, or both. Such outbursts, often directed towards her maids for the smallest infraction or irritation, make Minnie a far from attractive employer, in spite of the higher-than-average wages that she pays. Since she and Charles moved in to St John’s Wood around twelve months ago, she has been through nine maids within the first seven of those. Lettice is pleased to see Siobhan still answering the front door after five months, and still smiling.

 

“Good morning Siobhan.” Lettice answers with a sigh of relief, releasing the breath she has been holding ever since she climbed the stairs to the townhouse. Lettice is never quite sure what she will be faced with, or whom, when she visits the Palmerstons. “How are you?”

 

“Oh, one mustn’t grumble, Madam. Won’t you come in?”

 

“Thank you.” Lettice says as she steps over the threshold and into the townhouse’s vestibule. “Is your mistress at home?”

 

“Yes,” Siobhan says with a certain weariness and resignation as she helps Lettice out of her fox fur stole and her favourite powder blue coat and hangs the up on the heavy Victorian coatrack.

 

“That doesn’t sound promising, Siobhan.” Lettice says cautiously.

 

Minnie hired Siobhan because she thought that as she was Irish, she would be used to high spirits and histrionics, and from all that Lettice has gathered from her friend since the new maid started, it seems she was right. Siobhan has taken no offence to any outburst from her mistress, and to her credit, has even pulled her mistress into line a few times, which only a woman sure of herself and her beliefs could do without risking dismissal and a poor reference.

 

“Oh no. She’s fine, Madam.” the Irish maid elucidates with a sigh. “But she’s been like a naughty child around a Christmas tree on Christmas Eve ever since your men arrived two days ago with the new dining room furnishings.”

 

“Oh.” Lettice mutters, trying to remain serious at the maid’s complaint, but unable to hide the smile of mirth that turns up the corner of her mouth.

 

“I can’t keep her out of there for love nor money, Madam.”

 

At that moment their conversation is interrupted by an excited scream.

 

“Lettice! Lettice darling! Is that you?” echoes Minnie’s voice loudly from upstairs.

 

“See what I mean.” Siobhan mutters.

 

With a thump of excited footsteps, Minnie appears on the landing wrapped in a blue jacquard kimono of polychromatic silk with an embroidered collar and cuffs. Taking in her friend’s appearance, Lettice presumes she is halfway through getting dressed for an outing, for she has a soft green frock on beneath the robe, which hangs open, but her feet are still clad in vibrant pink satin mules with marabou feather trim.

 

“I knew it was you!” Minnie exclaims and she hurtles down the stairs with thudding footsteps and the next moment Lettice is enveloped in an embrace of blue, red and green satin which smells faintly of a mixture of Habinita* and cigarettes. Looking up into her excited face, Lettice can see that Minnie’s eye makeup is only half done. “How are you, Lettice darling?”

 

Lettice feels Minnie’s whispery kiss on her cheek as she is released from her friend’s enthusiastic embrace. “I’m very well thank you, Minnie darling. And you seem very excited.”

 

“Oh I am, darling! I am positively in raptures over the things that have been arriving with your men to redecorate my dining room with.”

 

“Told you.” mutters Siobhan with a knowing look to Lettice.

 

As if by her speaking, Minnie suddenly becomes aware of her maid’s presence, she says, “Haven’t you got some dusting or airing to do, Siobhan?”

 

“Yes, Madam.” The Irish maid replies with her eyebrows arching over her dark brown glittering eyes, before bobbing a curtsey and walking off down the hallway towards the rear of the house.

 

“She seems to be fitting in well.” Lettice nods after the retreating back of the domestic, smiling cheekily.

 

“Oh yes!” Minnie sighs. “Although she has more backbone than the maids I’m used to. Still, I have to confess that if she’s willing to put up with me, I should be able to tolerate her backbone.” She follows Lettice’s gaze.

 

The pair watch the maid disappear through a door at the far end of the corridor.

 

“Come on then!” Minnie slaps Lettice on the back before quickly winding her right arm around Lettice’s shoulder, placing her left hand on her collarbone and guiding her through the maze of overstuffed cream satin settees, nests of occasional tables and potted palms of the Edwardian drawing room and towards the dining room door. “Now, the servants are at your disposal for the day whilst you are here. Cook will serve luncheon when you want in the breakfast room. Just be a dear and tell her when you want to eat by sending a message to her via Siobhan.” Minnie flings open the door to the dining room dramatically and gasps. “Here we are then!”

 

The dining room is completely transformed. Gone is the old fashioned and rather staid Edwardian furnishings of Lady Arundel’s time, and perhaps more importantly, gone is the busy and bold wallpaper of red poppies against a black background with green and white geometric patterns that Minnie had had hung which had completely dominated the room. In its place, a luxurious metallic red dioxide paper embossed with flowers and leaves from Jeffrey and Company** hangs, giving the room a richness and intimacy. More importantly it doesn’t overpower the modernist paintings chosen by Charles to hang in the dining room, which sit unceremoniously placed on the fireplace mantle and on a black japanned console where Lettice’s men placed them. Two tall modern stands, the only two pieces, besides the paintings, from the room’s previous decoration, stand to one side of the tiled Art Deco gas fireplace. The rest of the room is populated with a jumble of sleek and stylish black japanned modern furnishings and lidded wooden crates of decorative items. The chairs set to go in the dining room are high backed to go with the proportions of the room, which has a high ceiling. They have been upholstered in a bold geometric pattern of red and gold, which compliments their black frames and the stylised wallpaper.

 

“You know,” Minnie says, releasing Lettice and stepping alongside the wall where she runs her hands over the lightly embossed pattern in the wall hangings. “I really wasn’t convinced by your choice of red dioxide, Lettice darling, even after we’d been to the Portland Gallery.” She caresses a large flower and several leaves lovingly. “I really did want gold. But now that I’ve seen it hung, I realise you were exactly right.” She looks at Lettice who sighs with satisfaction in response to Minnie’s admission. “Of course you were right, darling! Gold in here would have overpowered the paintings and the furnishings.”

 

“I did tell you, Minnie.” Lettice replies as she looks around the room.

 

“At least I did listen to you.” Minnie defends.

 

“It felt a bit more like coercion.”

 

“Well, you were right in the end Lettice. I just love this paper! It gives the room a cosy warmth, yet grandeur at the same time.”

 

“And it doesn’t feel like something out of Maida Vale***?” Lettice asks, referencing Minnie’s husband, Charles’, observation after she had it hung, that Minnie’s choice of bold wallpaper with its red poppies against a black background with green and white geometric patterns made the room feel like something from a gauche middle-class villa.

 

“Oh absolutely not, Lettice darling!” Minnie assures her friend. “Charles says it’s wonderful, and he will be more than happy to entertain in here.” Minnie looks around at the furniture, crates and artworks with a cursory glance. “Although I do think all this beauty will be wasted on those boring partners from the bank and their equally boring wives. All they care about is money, money, money,” She places a hand dramatically to her forehead and looks direly at Lettice. “Which leaves no breathing space for the art and beauty that feeds sensitive souls like you and I, Lettice darling.”

 

Lettice cannot help but giggle at her friend’s dramatic pose, covering her mouth with her hands as she does. “Oh Minnie!”

 

“Oh Minnie is right!” Charles’ pale and youthful face, clean shaven and topped with strawberry blonde hair pokes through the doorway leading from the hallway. He looks remarkably younger than his twenty eight years, appearing more like a boy of sixteen, with facial hair so pale that it is barely discernible against his peaches and cream skin. Stepping into the room he marches the few steps over to his wife and swipes her hand away from the wall. “I told you,” he scolds, not unkindly, but still with a little irritation. “Stop touching the wallpaper, or you’ll mark it.” He turns to Lettice. “Hullo Lettice darling.”

 

“Hullo Charles, darling!” Lettice replies, accepting an affectionate whispery kiss from her friend. “How are you?”

 

“All the better for seeing you and knowing that we’ll have a fully functional dining room by the end of the day. She,” He emphasises as he indicates with a flick of his thin eyebrows and a roll of his glittering blue eyes to his wife. “Has been like a jack-in-the box ever since your men came to deliver the furnishings. Every time I can’t find her where I expect her to be, I find her in here, toying.”

 

“So I heard from Siobhan,” Lettice remarks. “And so I see!” she adds, noting for the first time that several of the crates have had their lids prised open: the statues purchased at the Portland Gallery on Bond Street a few weeks ago lying exposed in their beds of white tissue paper or freed from them as they perch on the edge of the wooden boxes they came in.

 

“That’s not fair, Charles!” Minnie protests. “I was not toying!” She folds her arms akimbo, the kimono sleeves cascading prettily about her elbows. “I was… I was… communing with my new statues. After all, we’ve paid for them, so why shouldn’t I?”

 

“I’ve paid for them.” Charles corrects, once again not unpleasantly as he looks lovingly at his wife.

 

“Oh Minnie!” Lettice exclaims with exasperation. “Really! You couldn’t leave them alone for a few days.”

 

“Oh she’s like a kitten with a catnip mouse.” Charles laughs. “This project is her new toy, and she spends every waking hour she can in here. I told her though, that we can’t get you to redecorate the drawing room for a few months yet.”

 

“I wasn’t aware I was going to.” Lettice replies with a little bit of alarm.

 

“Well, I hadn’t actually gotten around to asking you yet,” Minnie pouts, glaring at her husband. “Thank you, Charles.”

 

“Never mind.” Charles answers her. “Now,” he adds as he looks his wife up and down critically. “Is this really how you greet our guest: dressed in a wrapper and slippers, Minnie?”

 

“Lettice isn’t a guest, Charles. She’s our friend. And as such, she’s seen us both in a far worse state than this. Don’t you remember the night Priscilla dared us to go swimming in the St James’s Park duck pond after we’d been at the Embassy until three?”

 

Charles shudders at the memory of dragging he and his wife from the murky depths of the lake one early morning in May, both of them drunk, drenched and draped in pond weeds, his shoes squelching and both of them shivering as the exhilaration of doing something forbidden loses its lustre as the alcoholic fug and bravado that comes with being tight**** wears off. “That Priscilla is a menace. Thank god she’s in Philadelphia, wreaking her own brand of mayhem there instead. I’m sure Georgie had no idea who he was truly marrying!” He shudders again. “Anyway, it doesn’t signify. Shouldn’t you be getting back upstairs and finish getting ready? We need to go soon.”

 

“I did want to stay, Lettice darling.” Minnie glowers. “But Charles contrived a visit to his parents for luncheon, whom I might just add, happen to be nicely out of town and down in Surrey, so we’ll be gone all day.”

 

“I told you, Lettice doesn’t need you scrutinising the placement of every item as she unpacks it, Minnie. You’ll be far more help to Lettice by keeping out of her way and coming with me for luncheon.” He looks beseechingly to Lettice to support his statement.

 

“It is true,” Lettice admits, speaking with a consoling tone. “That I prefer to work alone when I set up a room, Minnie darling. It will be easier if you come home and see my vision complete, and then you can see what it’s like and we can make any adjustments you want.”

 

“See, my poppet.” Charles goes up to his wife and drapes his arm around her and pulls her into his chest. “It really will be better if you’re in Surrey for the day. Besides, Mummy and Daddy are so looing forward to seeing you.”

 

“Oh!” Minnie concedes, her eyes cast to the dining room ceiling, blinking hard so as not to cry and make the makeup around her left eye not run. “I suppose you’re right. Although,” she adds. “I do think you are both beastly for ganging up on me and forcing me out of my own home.”

 

“Ahh-ahh!” Charles says, running his right hand lovingly over her right forearm. “No histrionics now, my sweet. You know this is best for everyone. Now, go on. Chop-chop! Go and finish getting ready, or we won’t get there in time for luncheon.”

 

Charles pushes he wife out the door that leads out into the hallway.

 

“Just ask Siobhan for anything you need, won’t you Lettice?”

 

“Of course,” Lettice assures him. “Oh, and thank you, Charles.” She casts her eye over Charles shoulder to where she last saw Minnie.

 

He winks and closes the door quietly behind him.

 

Lettice sighs and turns back to look at all the furnishings placed in a higgledy-piggledy way throughout the room. She walks up to two of the opened wooden crates stacked atop one another and grasps a statue of a woman in a dramatic pose with her back arched, one arm up and one arm down. She smiles and laughs quietly to herself as she cradles it in her hands. It seems apt to have chosen such a conspicuously posed statue for such a dramatic and vibrant personality as Minnie.

 

“See I told you,” Siobhan opens the third door of the dining room situated to the left of the fireplace which leads into what had been Lord Arundel’s smoking room. She nods and tuts knowingly. “Like a naughty child she is, dancing round the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve, anxious for her presents!”

 

“Indeed,” Lettice muses, but choosing not to say anything more in deference to her friend.

 

“And what time should I tell Cook that Madam will be expecting luncheon?”

  

*Molinard Habanita was launched in 1921. Molinard say that Habanita was the first women’s fragrance to strongly feature vetiver as an ingredient – something hitherto reserved for men, commenting that ‘Habanita’s innovative style was eagerly embraced by the garçonnes – France’s flappers – and soon became Molinard’s runaway success and an icon in the history of French perfume.’ Originally conceived as a scent for cigarettes – inserted via glass rods or to sprinkle from a sachet – women had begun sprinkling themselves with it instead, and Molinard eventually released it as a personal fragrance.

 

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

 

***Although today quite an affluent suburb of London, in 1922 when this scene is set, Maida Vale was more of an up-and-coming middle-class area owing to its proximity to the more up market St John’s Wood to its west. It has many late Victorian and Edwardian blocks of mansion flats. Charles’ remark that he felt like he was in a Maida Vale dining room was not meant to be taken as a compliment considering they live in St John’s Wood.

 

****To get tight is an old fashioned term used to describe getting drunk.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

On the lower of the two boxes is a miniature artisan hand painted Art Deco statue on a “marble” plinth. Made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality of the detail in their pieces, it is a 1:12 copy of the “Theban Dancer” sculpture created by Claire-Jeanne-Roberte Colinet in 1925. The tall statue standing on the edge of the upper box is also made by Warwick Miniatures and was hand painted by me.

  

The three wooden crates boxes came from The Doll’s House Suppliers in the United Kingdom. Edwardian times were the heyday of advertising, so it was not unusual to see popular household brands labels emblazoned on the side of buildings and even boxes.

 

The black japanned high backed chairs with their stylised Art Deco fabric upholstery came from a seller on E-Bay. The black japanned console was made by Town Hall Miniatures. The tall stand on which the ginger jar stands was made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq.

 

The three prong Art Deco style candelabra in the console is an artisan piece made of sterling silver. Although unsigned, the piece was made in England by an unknown artist.

 

The paintings around the room are 1:12 artisan pieces made by Amber’s Miniatures in the United States.

 

The Streamline Moderne pottery tile fireplace surround and the Art Deco green electric fireplace I acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dollhouse Shop in the United Kingdom.

 

The stylised metallic red dioxide floral wallpaper was paper given to me by a friend who encouraged me to use it in my miniature tableaux.

Here are several add-on lenses and their home-made adapters for mounting on my Nikon 105mm f/2.5 AI-S lens. I keep an inventory of damaged filters for scavenging rings to make a variety of adapters for working with a number of primary lenses.

 

On the left is an RMS thread to 52mm adapter, shown fitted with a Gaertner 80 mm microscope objective. Below is an unmounted 60mm. Their knurled mounting "position" rings have been color coded with a marker for quick reference... red = very short working distance, blue = longer working distance. The mounted objective / aluminum disc (fitted with a 52mm ring), is ready to be mounted on the front of the 105mm with the Gaertner objective facing the subject.

 

At top center is an adapter made from empty 58mm filter rings, and a Zeiss Microscope "dove-tail" accessory adapter (silver ribbed screw). The adapter is shown fitted with a Voss 75mm enlarging lens, below is an unmounted Laminex 90mm. An enlarging lens is screwed into a lens mounting ring locked in place by the silver knob, its aperture always at its widest setting... to minimize vignetting. This mounting ring remains locked in place allowing for quick changing of a number of enlarging lenses. The short stack of empty rings on the right is screwed onto the lens adapter just above the red ring, serving as a spacer to prevent the enlarging lens from contacting the Nikon 105mm objective, the adapter being mounted with the enlarging lens facing the camera.

 

Both adapters have threaded rings that face the subject, for mounting a home-made frozen dinner bowl flash diffuser fitted with an empty Raynox UAC 2000 snap on lens mount adapter.

 

These lenses provide very good magnification when used on the 105mm, which is always used focused at infinity to provide the greatest working distance.

 

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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.

 

Two of Lettice’s Embassy Club coterie of bright young things are getting married: Dickie Channon, eldest surviving son of the Marquess of Taunton, and Margot de Virre, only daughter of Lord Charles and Lady Lucie de Virre. Lettice is hosting an exclusive buffet supper party in their honour this evening, which is turning out to be one of the events of the 1921 London Season. Over the last few days, Lettice’s flat has been in upheaval as Edith. Lettice’s maid, and Lettice’s charwoman* Mrs. Boothby have been cleaning the flat thoroughly in preparation for the occasion. Earlier today with the help of a few hired men they moved some of the furnishings in Lettice’s drawing room into the spare bedroom to make space for the hired dance band and for the guests to dance and mingle. Edith’s preserve of the kitchen has been overrun by delivery men, florists and caterers. Yet it has finally all fallen into place perfectly just as a red and white striped marquee is erected by Gunter and Company** over the entrance and the pavement outside.

 

Now we find ourselves in Lettice’s dining room, which has become the focal point for half the party guests as her dining table is given over to a magnificent buffet created by Harrods catering, whilst Dickie stands at one corner, thoroughly enjoying playing the part of barman as he makes cocktails for all his friends.

 

Lettice sighs with satisfaction as she looks around the drawing room and dining room of her flat. Both rooms have a golden glow about them created by a mixture of electric light and candlelight and the fug of cigarette smoke. The rooms are populated with London society’s glittering young people, nicknamed “bright young things” by the newspapers. Men in white tie and tails with a smattering of daring souls wearing dinner jackets chatter animatedly and dance with ladies in beautifully coloured evening gowns with loose bodices, sashes and irregular and handkerchief hems. Jewels wink at throats, on fingers, dangling from ears and in carefully coiffed and finger waved hair, illuminated by the brilliant lighting. Bugle beads glitter as gowns gently wash about the figures of their wearers as they move. Everywhere gay chatter about the Season and the upcoming wedding of Margot and Dickie fills the air, the joyous sound mixing with the lively jazz quartet who play syncopated tunes lustily in a corner of Lettice’s drawing room.

 

“Dubonnet and gin?” Dickie asks Lettice as she stands by the buffet and picks up a biscuit lightly smeared with salmon mousse.

 

“Oh you are a brick, Dickie!” Lettice enthuses, popping the dainty morsel into her mouth. Accepting the reddish gold cocktail from him she adds, “But really, this is your party. You should be out there, socialising with Margot, not standing here making cocktails for everyone.”

 

“Why should I bother going out there to socialise,” he waves his hand across the crowded room to the edge of the makeshift dancefloor where his fiancée stands in a beautiful ankle length silver georgette gown studded in silver sequins, surrounded by a small clutch of equally elegant young guests. “When they all have to come to me for drinks.”

 

“Ahhh,” Lettice titters as she sips her cocktail. “So there is method in your madness, Dickie.”

 

“Isn’t there always, Lettice?” he laughs. “Now, you are technically hostess of this bash. Go out there and dazzle everyone.” Then he stops and adds, “Well, not quite everyone.” And he blows a kiss to his fiancée whose eye he has caught from across the crowded room.

 

“Alright Dickie,” Lettice laughs and she saunters off into the crowd, pausing to smile and say hullo and accept the compliments of her many guests.

 

Suddenly she spots a beautiful woman in a pale pink beaded gown with dark finger waved hair framing her peaches and cream complexion standing docilely by the dancefloor watching the stream of passing couples dancing past in each other’s arms. She seems distant and remote, even a little sad, and far removed from the frenetic energy and jolly bonhomie about her. Excusing herself from the couple who are addressing her, Lettice slips over to her.

 

“Hullo Elizabeth***!” Lettice embraces her warmly. “I wasn’t sure if you were going to come along tonight considering everything that’s happened.”

 

“I wasn’t sure myself, Lettice.” Elizabeth replies, a warm smile revealing a slightly crooked set of teeth. “But I couldn’t let Dickie and Margot down.” Then she adds quickly as an afterthought, “Or you, darling Lettice.”

 

“Well, I’m glad you’ve come. How are you feeling?”

 

“A little battered and bruised emotionally.” Elizabeth admits with a lilt of sadness. “But one mustn’t complain.”

 

“I still don’t understand why you said no to his marriage proposal. I thought you loved Bertie****.”

 

“I did.” Elizabeth remarks before correcting herself. “I do! But I’m afraid that if I said yes to him, I’d never, never again be able to be free to think, speak and act as I feel I really ought to. Besides,” she adds conspiratorially, glancing about her before continuing. “His mother terrifies me.”

 

“She terrifies all of us,” Lettice laughs lighty as she waves her hand gaily about the room. “Now, what you need to pick you up and forget your heartache is one of these.” She points to the glass in her hand.

 

“What is it?” Elizabeth asks, eyeing Lettice’s glass and sniffing its contents with suspicion.

 

“A Dubonnet and gin. Dickie will make you one. Go and ask him.” Lettice grasps Elizabeth by the shoulder and sends her toddling across to Dickie as he stands behind a line of bottles and a beautiful arrangement of roses.

 

“Lettice!” Margot suddenly calls from across the room, beckoning her over enthusiastically. “Lettice, darling!”

 

Squeezing between small clusters of well-dressed guests drinking and eating or leaving the dance floor, Lettice makes her way over to her friend.

 

“Hullo Margot, darling! Are you having a fabulous time?”

 

“Fabulous isn’t enough of a word to describe it, darling!” she replies with eyes shimmering with excitement and joy. “Such a thrilling bash! I can’t thank you enough!”

 

“Yes Lettice,” a deep male voice adds from behind her. “You certainly do know how to throw a party!”

 

“Lord de Virre!” Lettice exclaims, spinning around. “Oh! I didn’t know you’d arrived. Now, who can I introduce you to?”

 

“No-one my dear. My beautiful daughter has been doing an ample job of introducing me to so many people that already this old man cannot remember who is whom.”

 

“Never old!” Lettice scolds, hitting his arm playfully as she curls her own through the crook in his. “Then if I can’t introduce to anyone, perhaps I can entreat you into eating something.”

 

“Now that I won’t refuse, Lettice.”

 

Lettice and Margot guide Lord de Virre across the crowded dining room to the buffet table weighed down with delicious savoury petit fours, vol-au-vents, caviar, dips, cheese and pâte and pasties. Glasses full, partially drained and empty are scattered amidst the silver trays and china plates.

 

“Champagne, Sir?” Dickie calls out.

 

“Good show Dickie!” laughs Lord de Virre over the noise of the party. “Playing barman tonight, are we?”

 

“It’s the best role to play at a party, Sir.” He passes Lord de Virre a flute of sparkling champagne poured from the bottle wedged into a silver ice bucket.

 

Behind him Lettice spies Elizabeth with a Dubonnet and gin in her glove clad hand. Lettice catches her eye and discreetly raises her glass, which Elizabeth returns with a gentle smile.

 

“Now Lettice, darling,” Margot enthuses as she selects a dainty petit four. “Daddy has just reminded me of an idea we had a few weeks ago, which I meant to ask you about, but between all Gerald’s dress fittings and other arrangements for the wedding,” She flaps her hand about, the diamonds in her engagement ring sparkling in the light. “Well, I completely forgot.”

 

Lettice tries not to smile as she feels the gentlest of squeezes from Lord de Virre’s arm and remembers the conversation that she and he had some weeks ago in his study. “What is it?” She glances between Margot and her father, pretending not to know what is coming.

 

“Well, Daddy suggested… I mean… I was wondering…”

 

“Yes, Margot darling?”

 

“Well, you know how the Marquess is giving us that house in Cornwall?”

 

“Yes! Chi an… an…?”

 

“Chi an Treth!” Dickie calls out helpfully.

 

“Yes!” Margot concurs. “Beach House! Well, it hasn’t been lived in for ever such a long time, and it’s a bit old fashioned. Daddy is kindly organising for it to be electrified, re-plumbed and have it connected to the Penzance telephone exchange for us.” Margot pauses. “And… well he and… we… that is to say that I thought…”

 

“Yes?” Lettice coaxes with lowered lids as she takes a gentle sip of her Dubonnet and gin.

 

“Well, we… Dickie and I that is… well we rather hoped that you might consider fixing up a couple of rooms for us. Would you? I would just so dearly love a room or two decorated by you! Dickie even thinks that his father can pull some strings and get you an article in Country Life if you do?”

 

“Oh Margot!” Lettice exclaims, releasing her grip on Lord de Virre and depositing her glass on the table she flings her arms about her friend’s neck. “I’d love to!”

 

Lettice suddenly feels a gentle poking of fingers into the small of her back. Letting go of Margot, she stands back and looks at her, remembering the lines Lord de Virre asked her to come up with and rehearse upon agreeing to Margot’s request.

 

“Of course, I can’t do it straight away, you understand. You know I’m currently mid-way through Miss Ward’s flat in Pimlico.”

 

“Oh that’s alright,” Margot beams. “The modernisation isn’t finished yet, so we won’t even be going down there to inspect the place until after our honeymoon.”

 

Lettice feels Lord de Virre’s prodding in her back again.

 

“And I won’t do it for free, Margot. I have already given you a wedding gift. I’m a businesswoman now.”

 

“Oh, well that’s just the thing,” Margot exclaims, clasping her hands in delight. “Daddy has kindly agreed to pay for it all.”

 

Lettice looks up at Lord de Virre. He looks back at her seriously, but she can see a smile tweaking the edges of his mouth, trying to create a cheeky smile. She tries to keep up the pretence that she didn’t already know that Margot was going to ask her to redecorate for her and Dickie as she says, “Really Lord de Virre? All of it? That’s very generous of you.”

 

“Not a bit of it, Lettice. This is a good, sound business transaction. You may send your quotes to me for consideration,” He ennunciates the last word carefully to stress its importance, more for Margot’s sake than Lettice’s. “Once you have seen the rooms as they are now.”

 

“Thank you Lord de Virre,” Lettice replies. “Well Margot, I suppose that settles it then!”

 

“Oh Dickie!” Margot exclaims, scuttling over to her fiancée. “She said yes!”

 

“Who did, darling?” Dickie asks as he adds crème de menthe to colour his Fallen Angel cocktail a pale green.

 

“What do you mean, who?” Margot hits his arm jokingly as she sways excitedly from side to side. “Lettice of course!” She looks back over to her friend standing alongside her father. “She’s agreed to decorate for us.”

 

“Oh, jolly good show!” Dickie smiles. “Thanks awfully Lettice, darling! Now you’re the brick!”

 

“Always Dickie!” Lettice laughs back.

 

“Listen Dickie!” Margot gasps. “The band is playing ‘Dancing Time’*****! Come away from the bar and dance with me.”

 

“You’d best not refuse her, my boy!” teases Lord de Virre. “It’s madness if you try. I never could!”

 

The happily engaged couple hurry across the room, hand in hand, slipping between clusters of guests before disappearing into the crowd on the dancefloor as the music from the band soars above the burble of the crowd and the clink of glasses.

 

“So, we finally have an official arrangement, Miss Chetwynd?” Lord de Virre says discreetly as he raises his glass towards Lettice.

 

“I think we do, Lord de Virre.” Lettice smiles and clinks her glass with his as they toast their arrangement formally. “Your offer is simply too good to refuse.”

 

*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.

 

**Gunter and Company were London caterers and ball furnishers with shops in Berkley Square, Sloane Street, Lowndes Street and New Bond Street. They began as Gunter’s Tea Shop at 7 and 8 Berley Square 1757 where it remained until 1956 as the business grew and opened different premises. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Gunter's became a fashionable light eatery in Mayfair, notable for its ices and sorbets. Gunter's was considered to be the wedding cake makers du jour and in 1889, made the bride cake for the marriage of Queen Victoria’s granddaughter, Princess Louise of Wales. Even after the tea shop finally closed, the catering business carried on until the mid 1970s.

 

***Elizabeth Bowes Lyon as she was known in 1921 went on to become Queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions from 1936 to 1952 as the wife of King George VI. Whilst still Duke of York, Prince Albert initially proposed to Elizabeth in 1921, but she turned him down, being "afraid never, never again to be free to think, speak and act as I feel I really ought to"

 

****Prince Albert, Duke of York, known by the diminutive “Bertie” to the family and close friends, was the second son of George V. Not only did Bertie propose to Elizabeth in 1921, but also in March 1922 after she was a bridesmaid at the wedding of Albert’s sister, Princess Mary to Viscount Lascelles. Elizabeth refused him a second time, yet undaunted Bertie pursued the girl who had stolen his heart. Finally, in January 1923 she agreed to marry him in spite of her misgivings about royal life.

 

*****’Dancing Time’ was a popular song in Britain in 1921 with words by George Grossmith Jr. and music by Jerome Kern.

 

This rather splendid buffet of delicious savoury treats might look real to you, but in fact the whole scene is made up on 1:12 scale miniatures from my miniatures collection.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

On Lettice’s black japanned dining table delicious canapés are ready to be consumed by party guests. The plate of sandwiches, the silver tray of biscuits and the bowls of dips, most of the savoury petite fours on the silver tray furthest from the camera and the silver tray of Cornish pasties were made in England by hand from clay by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight. Her work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination. The cheese selection on the tray closest to the camera were made by hand by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering, as are the empty champagne glasses all of which are made of hand blown glass. The bowl of caviar was made by Karen Lady Bug Miniatures in England.

 

The tray that the caviar is sitting on and the champagne bucket are made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. The bottle of Deutz and Geldermann champagne. It is an artisan miniatures and made of glass and has real foil wrapped around its neck. It was made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. Several of the other bottles of mixers in the foreground are also made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. The bottle of Gordon’s Dry Gin, the bottle of Crème de Menthe, Cinzano, Campari and Martini are also 1:12 artisan miniatures, made of real glass, and came from a specialist stockist in Sydney. 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. Crème de menthe (French for "mint cream") is a sweet, mint-flavored alcoholic beverage. Crème de menthe is an ingredient in several cocktails popular in the 1920s, such as the Grasshopper and the Stinger. It is also served as a digestif. Cinzano vermouths date back to 1757 and the Turin herbal shop of two brothers, Giovanni Giacomo and Carlo Stefano Cinzano, who created a new "vermouth rosso" (red vermouth) using "aromatic plants from the Italian Alps in a recipe which is still secret to this day. Campari is an Italian alcoholic liqueur, considered an apéritif. It is obtained from the infusion of herbs and fruit (including chinotto and cascarilla) in alcohol and water. It is a bitters, characterised by its dark red colour.

 

The vase of red roses on the dining table and the vase of yellow lilies on the Art Deco console are beautifully made by hand by the Doll House Emporium. Also on the console table stand some of Lettice’s precious artisan purchases from the Portland Gallery in Soho. The pair of candelabra at either end of the sideboard are sterling silver artisan miniatures from Karen Ladybug Miniatures in England. The silver drinks set, made by artisan Clare Bell at the Clare Bell Brass Works in Maine, in the United States. Each goblet is only one centimetre in height and the decanter at the far end is two- and three-quarter centimetres with the stopper inserted. Lettice’s Art Deco ‘Modern Woman’ figure is actually called ‘Christianne’ and was made and hand painted by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland. ‘Christianne’ is based on several Art Deco statues and is typical of bronze and marble statues created at that time for the luxury market in the buoyant 1920s.

 

Lettice’s dining room is furnished with Town Hall Miniatures furniture, which is renown for their quality. The only exceptions to the room is the Chippendale chinoiserie carver chair and the Art Deco cocktail cabinet (the edge of which just visible on the far right-hand side of the photo) which were made by J.B.M. Miniatures.

 

The paintings on the walls are 1:12 artisan pieces made by Amber’s Miniatures in the United States. 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.

 

It is the day after Lettice’s exclusive buffet supper party for two of her Embassy Club coterie of bright young things who are getting married: Dickie Channon, eldest surviving son of the Marquess of Taunton, and Margot de Virre, only daughter of Lord Charles and Lady Lucie de Virre. The soirée in their honour was a glittering success and will go down as one of the events of the 1921 London Season according to the Tattler’s society pages correspondent who busily scribbled notes about all the great and good of the land who were present and what they were wearing, whilst a photographer from the London magazine captured the guests in all their glittering finery.

 

The day has been spent setting the Mayfair flat back to rights and Lettice’s maid, Edith, with the help of Mrs. Boothby, Lettice’s charwoman* and one of Mrs. Boothby’s friends, Jackie, have swept and polished, scrubbed and cleaned, whilst Gunter and Company’s** men have restored the furnishings to where they were before the drawing room was turned into a ballroom and the dining room into a buffet.

 

It's after midnight in the up-to-date modern kitchen and silence envelops the flat. Outside only the occasional drone of a taxi dropping late night revellers home, or the hiss of two fighting cats somewhere on the moonlight rooftops outside breaks the evening quiet. Edith has washed all the glasses, crockery and silverware from dinner and after such a busy day of work she should be tired and sleeping soundly like Lettice is, but instead she is still full of excitement from the previous evening as she sits at the deal kitchen table and thinks about all the beautiful people to whom she served drinks.

 

Her mistress looked beautiful in a powder blue silk georgette gown designed by her childhood friend Gerald Bruton who has his own dress shop in Grosvenor Street. Margot wore a stunning low waisted gown of silver satin. However, it was another guest at the party, Lady Diana Cooper *** who really caught Edith’s eye. With a neat, short chignon of waves and curls woven around a bandeau of diamonds, she wore a stunning blue gown of layer upon diaphanous layer of handkerchief point Lanvin blue silk taffeta which Edith knows from her mistress’ cast-off fashion magazines to be a ‘robe de style’**** with a full skirt supported by a wire hoop underneath the fabric. Pinned to the waist was a large pink satin rose with a slightly smaller one sewn to the right shoulder.

 

“Oh,” Edith sighs as she picks up a jam fancy biscuit from the Delftware plate in front of her and takes a bite. “How I should love to be reminded of that gown forever.”

 

As she munches on the biscuit and takes a sip of tea from her teacup, Edith suddenly has an idea. One of her pleasures in her spare time is to collect articles on the latest styles of clothes and hair from Lettice’s old magazines and paste them into scrapbooks. Her current scrapbook has a blank first page which she has kept for something special. Now she knows what that something special is.

 

Slipping quietly out into the drawing room of the flat, Edith fossicks carefully through the Chippendale gilded black japanned chinoiserie cabinet next to the fireplace and withdraws her mistress’ box of watercolours which she takes back to the kitchen. Going into her own little bedroom off the kitchen she withdraws a pack of coloured pencils from her chest of drawers and snatches up her scrapbook from its surface where it sits upright behind her sewing box, leaning against the floral papered wall. Returning to the kitchen she sets everything out on the table.

 

“Come on now girl,” Edith mutters encouragingly to herself as she takes up a grey lead pencil. “Let’s put that memory of yours to the test and see if we can’t get it out on paper.”

 

The pencil tip scratches across the paper as Edith’s hand moves deftly over the page. She starts to hum ‘After the Ball is Over’*****. Soon the figure of a woman emerges on the page with a short chignon dancing gaily with one arm out and another crossed over her chest. The room remains silent except for the tick of the clock, Edith’s soft humming and the sound of pencil against paper as the dress quickly takes form, with its cascades of layers billowing out over the model’s legs, the gown daringly showing her calves, just as Viscountess Norwich had when she danced with her handsome husband and other friends at the party.

 

“Not bad,” Edith says as she finishes her sketch. “Not bad at all. Now for some colour.”

 

She goes to the kitchen cupboard where she keeps the old Victorian jugs that Lettice uses for water when she is doing watercolour sketching and withdraws the smallest jug. Filling it with some water she goes back to her seat. She looks guiltily at her mistress’ watercolours resting atop the scrapbook.

 

“Well,” Edith reasons. “My schoolteachers all said I had artistic flair.” She sighs. “And if I were as lucky as Miss Lettice, I’d have had a tutor to teach me art, or maybe even have gone to the Slade School of Fine Art. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind me using her paints just this one time.”

 

She releases a sigh of pleasure as she mixes the vibrant robin’s egg blue shade of the gown and begins to paint her sketched figure. The colour lightens as she reaches the hem, matching the stockings on her model. Adding more colour to the pool of blue she then defines the shoes. Rinsing the brush in the jug she waits until the blue paint is dry before adding the rose madder of the silk rose on the shoulder and sleeve, and blonde hair to match her own shade to her figure. Making notes about Lettice’s party in the margins around the edge of her picture, Edith waits until the watercolour is dry. Taking up her colour pencils she adds detail, highlights of colour and shading to her sketch, totally oblivious of the time as the hands on the kitchen clock pass one o’clock, all the while humming happily away.

 

“There!” Edith remarks at last, satisfied with her creation. “Perhaps I could give Mr. Bruton a run for his money.” She chuckles to herself at the thought. “Now I shall have Lady Cooper’s gown forever.”

 

As she starts to pack up the watercolours, pencils, sketchbook and tea things she continues to hum ‘After the Ball is Over’, her body swaying to the tune as she imagines herself dancing at a party in the beautiful gown she had just created from memory on paper.

 

*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.

 

**Gunter and Company were London caterers and ball furnishers with shops in Berkley Square, Sloane Street, Lowndes Street and New Bond Street. They began as Gunter’s Tea Shop at 7 and 8 Berley Square 1757 where it remained until 1956 as the business grew and opened different premises. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Gunter's became a fashionable light eatery in Mayfair, notable for its ices and sorbets. Gunter's was considered to be the wedding cake makers du jour and in 1889, made the bride cake for the marriage of Queen Victoria’s granddaughter, Princess Louise of Wales. Even after the tea shop finally closed, the catering business carried on until the mid 1970s.

 

***Born Lady Diana Manners, Diana Olivia Winifred Maud Cooper, Viscountess Norwich was an English aristocrat who was a famously glamorous social figure in London and Paris. As a young woman, she moved in a celebrated group of intellectuals known as the Coterie, most of whom were killed in the First World War. She married Duff Cooper in 1919. In her prime, she had the widespread reputation as the most beautiful young woman in England, and appeared in countless profiles, photographs and articles in newspapers and magazines. She was a film actress in the early 1920s and both she and her husband were very good friends with Edward VIII and were guests of his on a 1936 yacht cruise of the Adriatic which famously caused his affair with Wallis Simpson to become public knowledge.

 

****The ‘robe de style’ was introduced by French couturier Jeanne Lanvin around 1915. It consisted of a basque bodice with a broad neckline and an oval bouffant skirt supported by built in wire hoops. Reminiscent of the Spanish infanta-style dresses of the Seventeenth Century and the panniered robe à la française of the Eighteenth Century they were made of fabric in a solid colour, particularly a deep shade of robin’s egg blue which became known as Lanvin blue, and were ornamented with concentrated bursts of embroidery, ribbons or ornamental silk flowers.

 

*****’After the Ball is Over’ was a popular 1891 song written by Charles K. Harris.

 

Believe it or not Edith’s sketch and her scrapbook as well as all the items around them are perhaps not quite as they appear, for all of them are 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my miniatures collection.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

Edith’s scrapbook is a 1:12 size miniature made by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. Most of the books I own that he has made may be opened to reveal authentic printed interiors. In some cases, you can even read the words, depending upon the size of the print! I have quite a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my collection, but so little of his real artistry is seen because the books that he specialised in making are usually closed, sitting on shelves or closed on desks and table surfaces. Therefore, it is a pleasure to give you a glimpse inside this wonderful scrapbook from the 1920s which contains sketches, photographs and article clippings. Even the paper has been given the appearance of wrinkling as happens when glue is applied to cheap pulp paper. To give you an idea of the work that has gone into this scrapbook, it contains twelve double sided pages of scrapbook articles, pictures, sketches and photographs and measures forty millimetres in height and thirty millimetres in width and is only three millimetres thick. What might amaze you even more is that all Ken Blythe’s opening books are authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make this a miniature artisan piece. Ken Blythe’s work is highly sought after by miniaturists around the world today and command high prices at auction for such tiny pieces, particularly now that he is no longer alive. I was fortunate enough to acquire pieces from Ken Blythe prior to his death about four years ago. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter. I hope that you enjoy this peek at just one of hundreds of his books that I own, and that it makes you smile with its sheer whimsy!

 

The watercolour paint set, brushes, and Limoges style jugs (two of a set of three) come from Melody Jane Dolls’ House. So too do the pencils, which are one millimetre wide and two centimetres long.

 

The Huntley and Palmer’s Family Circle Biscuits tin containing a replica selection of biscuits is also a 1:12 artisan piece. Huntley and Palmers is a British firm of biscuit makers originally based in Reading, Berkshire. The company created one of the world’s first global brands and ran what was once the world’s largest biscuit factory. Over the years, the company was also known as J. Huntley and Son and Huntley and Palmer. Huntley and Palmer were renown for their ‘superior reading biscuits’ which they promoted in different varieties for different occasions, including at breakfast time. The design on the tin originates from the 1920s, but continued much later due to its popularity. The biscuits on the plate are 1:12 scale artisan pieces. The jam fancy is made by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering, whilst the chocolate chip biscuit has been made in England by hand from clay by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight. Her work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination.

 

The tea cosy, which fits snugly over a white porcelain teapot, has been hand knitted in fine lemon, blue and violet wool. It comes easily off and off and can be as easily put back on as a real tea cosy on a real teapot. It comes from a specialist miniatures stockist in England.

 

The Deftware cup, saucer and milk jug are part of a 1:12 size miniature porcelain dinner set which I acquired from a private collection of 1:12 miniatures in Holland.

Supplement

 

If you are interested in LICENSING one of my photos, please contact me by email.

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 it is Tuesday, and we are in the very modern and up-to-date 1920s kitchen of Lettice’s flat: Edith her maid’s preserve. Being Tuesday, Mrs. Boothby, Lettice’s charwoman* who comes on Tuesdays and every third Thursday to do the hard jobs is busy polishing the floors in Lettice’s bedroom, whilst Edith arranges tea things on the deal kitchen table in the middle of the room whilst she waits for the copper kettle on the stove to boil.

 

“Oh good!” Mrs. Boothby sighs as she slips into the kitchen via the door that leads from the flat’s entrance hall. “You’ve got the kettle on, dearie!” A fruity cough emanates from deep within her wiry little body as she deposits her polishing box beneath the sink and puts the dirty rags that require washing down the laundry chute. “Nah just I’ll just sit ‘ere for a few minutes and you can give me a reviving cup of Rosie-Lee** and I’ll ‘ave a fag before I get started on scrubbin’ the bathroom.”

 

“Oh no you don’t!” Edith says sharply as she places her own hand firmly over the opening of Mrs. Boothby’s blue beaded handbag before the old Cockney woman can grab her cigarette papers, Swan Vestas and tin of Player’s Navy Cut.

 

“What?” Mrs. Boothby looks up at Edith in surprise. “I’m only goin’ for me fags, dearie, not a pistol.”

 

“Miss Lettice has a guest and I’ve just made a Victoria sponge.” She indicates to the golden sponge cake with jam and cream oozing from its middle standing next to Lettice’s Art Deco tea service. “I don’t want it or the tea I’m making smelling of your foul cigarette smoke, Mrs. Boothby!”

 

“Me smoke ain’t foul!” the older woman snaps back.

 

“Yes, it is, Mrs. Boothby.”

 

How Edith hates the older woman’s habit of smoking indoors. When she lived with her parents, neither smoked in the house. Her mother didn’t smoke at all: it would have been unladylike to do so, and her father only smoked a pipe when he went down to the local pub.

 

“The stench comin’ from privy down the end of my rookery, now that’s foul, dearie.”

 

“It’s all relative Mrs. Boothby.” Edith says cheerily. “Now, I will make you a cup of tea since I’m boiling the kettle for Miss Lettice,”

 

“Oh, ta.” Mrs. Boothby says sarcastically.

 

“But if you want to smoke today,” Edith ignores her. “Please go and do so on the porch outside.”

 

Mrs. Boothby groans as she picks herself out of Edith’s comfortable Windsor chair. Grumbling quietly, but not so quietly that Edith can’t hear her muttering, the old woman fossicks through her capacious bag and snatches out a cigarette she had already rolled previously and her box of Swan Vesta matches. She mooches over to the kitchen door that leads to the tradesman’s stairs and lights her cigarette, folding her bony arms akimbo across her sagging chest.

 

“Thank you.” Edith says diplomatically, even though she doesn’t really want to thank the Cockney woman at all.

 

“So,” Mrs. Boothby blows a plume of blueish silver smoke out into the outer corridor. “An American, then.”

 

Edith knows Mrs. Boothby is fishing for gossip on Lettice’s guest, and she doesn’t like to gossip with the charwoman. Unlike her friend and fellow maid Hilda, Mrs. Boothby is not very discreet. “Mmn,” she says non-committally as she starts placing the tea things on a square silver tray, a new purchase by Lettice from Asprey’s.

 

“Oh come on, dearie,” Mrs. Boothby’s eyes roll as she speaks. “Don’t be prim and propa. Ooh is she then?”

 

“You know I don’t like to gossip, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith replies.

 

“Well, you’d be the only maid this side of St. James what don’t, dearie.”

 

“All I know is that Miss Lettice asked me to bake a Victoria sponge for her guest, and that’s what I’ve done.”

 

“Well ya know ‘er name anyroad, ‘cos ya let ‘er in. Ya can tell me that much at least.”

 

“Her name is Miss Ward.”

 

“Wanetta Ward,” Mrs. Boothby crows triumphantly. “I ‘eard Miss Lettice talkin’ to ‘er.”

 

“Well, if you’ve been listening at keyholes, Mrs. Boothby, I don’t suppose anything I told you would be news then.”

 

“Oh come on, dearie,” she cries. Knowing the chink in Edith’s armour she continues. “What’s she look like then?”

 

As soon as the words are out of Mrs. Boothby’s mouth, Edith’s eyes light up. She loves fashion and the glamourous people that Lettice mixes with. Not that Mrs. Boothby knows it, because she never goes into her room, but Edith has scrapbooks of cuttings of London’s rich and famous clipped from Lettice’s discarded newspapers and magazines in her drawers.

 

“Oh she’s very glamourous! Tall and statuesque.”

 

“Aah,” Mrs. Boothby says dismissively, but the cocked eyebrow that Edith can’t see gives away that her interest has been piqued.

 

“Her hair is a soft curly rich dark auburn set in girlish bob, and she has peaches and cream skin. She is wearing an orchid silk chiffon dress with a matching satin slip. It’s daringly short!” Edith gushes. “You can see the bottom of her calves even before sits down.”

 

“Well, she must be American for certain then, ta wear somethin’ so daring.” Mrs. Boothby coaxes carefully.

 

“She has a beautiful hat to match which is covered in silk flowers. She wouldn’t let me take it from her. Something about her luck? I didn’t really understand. She walks with a walking stick, just for show I think as she has a very elegant gait.”

 

“Oh. I wonder if she’s an actress on the stage?”

 

“Maybe. She certainly has the bearing of a person who commands attention.”

 

“Or maybe,” the charwoman continues, puffing out another cloud of smoke. “Maybe she’s one of them movin’ picture actresses, like what I’ve seen up at the Premier*** in East Ham.”

 

“Imagine!” Edith enthuses, her eyes sparking. “A real American moving picture star!” She looks to the green baize door that leads to the living areas of the flat.

 

“Yes, imagine.” Mrs. Boothby smiles wistfully as she takes a long drag on her cigarette.

 

“Oh, you are awful Mrs. Boothby!” Edith gasps, suddenly realising what she’s done. “You’ve made me gossip.”

 

“Oh, now don’t you worry your pretty ‘ead about it, dearie.” Mrs. Boothby soothes the young maid. “I’m only int’rested in ooh frequents the houses I clean for so I knows I’m in a respectable establishment. I won’t tell a soul. I promise!”

 

The charwoman smiles a yellow toothy grin that makes Edith regret her lack of discretion slightly.

 

“Per’aps she’s come ta be a film star in London. I read in the papers that they’s makin’ films ‘ere in London, over in ‘Oxton**** nah the war’s over!”

 

“Well, I wouldn’t know anything about that Mrs. Boothby.” she mutters, turning her back on the Cockney woman to hide the blush crossing her face after realising that she has been taken in by her.

 

Taking the kettle off the stove Edith fills the elegant gilded white porcelain pot and stirs it. She goes to the dresser and removes a pretty Delftware teacup and saucer and puts it on the table. She pours of little of the tea from Lettice’s pot into the cup, adds a splash of milk and some sugar. She refills Lettice’s pot.

 

“Tea, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith places the Delftware teacup and saucer into the Cockney woman’s empty right hand as it pokes out from beneath her left elbow.

 

“Oh, ta!” she replies gratefully. Lifting the cup to her lips she takes a sip, savouring the delicious hot beverage.

 

“I must take the tea in to Miss Lettice.” Edith says in as businesslike a fashion as she can manage.

 

“And yer want ta get annuva geezer at your beautiful star again.” Another fruity cough escapes her throat as she chuckles to herself. “Ain’t I right?” She taps her nose with her left hand, the glowing but of the cigarette nestled between her index and middle fingers. “I know a young girl’s heart. B’lieve it or not, I used ta be a young slip of a fing once too!”

 

“Just leave the cup in the sink before you clean the bathroom.” Edith blanches at being caught out as starstruck. “I will have these things to wash later.”

 

Edith smiles conspiratorially at Mrs. Boothby, picks up the tray of tea things, holds her head high and slips through the green baize door into the dining room of the flat to serve her mistress and her glamorous guest, American Wanetta Ward in the drawing room beyond.

 

*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.

 

**Rosie-Lee is Cockney slang for tea, and it is one of the most well-known of all Cockney rhyming slang.

 

***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.

 

****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 busy domestic kitchen scene is a little different to what you might think, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my miniatures collection, some of which come 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. It stands on a silver tray that is part of tea set that comes from Smallskale Miniatures in England. To see the whole set, please click on this link: www.flickr.com/photos/40262251@N03/51111056404/in/photost...

 

The Victoria sponge (named after Queen Victoria) is made by Polly’s Pantry Miniatures in America. The vase of flowers on the table is made of glass and it and the bouquet have been made by hand by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The box of Lyon’s tea has been made by Jonesey’s Miniatures in England.

 

On the dresser that can be seen just to the right of shot stands a Cornishware cannister. Cornishware is a striped kitchenware brand trademarked to and manufactured by T.G. Green & Co Ltd. Originally introduced in the 1920s and manufactured in Church Gresley, Derbyshire, it was a huge success for the company and in the succeeding 30 years it was exported around the world. The company ceased production in June 2007 when the factory closed under the ownership of parent company, The Tableshop Group. The range was revived in 2009 after T.G. Green was bought by a trio of British investors.

 

Edith’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.

- Luncheon Karolin Stone -

 

Well, she was not my first choice but I thought she was really beautiful and got a lot of potential! ^^

 

Unfortunately she often had so many flaws which bothered me a lot: lips not filled well, wonky eyes, wild & crooked eyelashes...

 

That was the main reason not to get her. I know mine isn't flawless either but I think after all I got hold of a pretty nice Luncheon Karolin! I'm really happy with her and I'm going to upload some photos of her soon... 😊

   

-end series-

title.

Miles Davis sheet 1955 - 1976 .( FUJIFILM GFX50R shot )

  

Miles Davis sheet 1955 - 1976 .

 

I summarized the important times of Miles Davis. I wanted an easy-to-understand table.

I will continue to supplement it in the future. And if you fit your taste, I am very happy.

:)

 

1 This table is based on Miles Davis's Wikipedia. The reason is that I felt that this text was the basis.

2 The boot leg is therefore an addition to this table. In addition, the album where the soundtrack and Miles participated is not in the description.

3 The table is centered on 1955 to 1976. This reflects my hobbies.

4 This table may be revised in the future. I am also interested in the bootleg.

5 This table creates two versions: Japanese and English. In addition, three types of PDF, Excel, and Numbers are uploaded.

6 The color scheme in this table is based on Miles' album, “birth of cool”.

 

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2019/05/post-70842e...

  

The Tokyo Big Sight booth has been decided.

It is as follows.

 

designfesta.com/about-artist-detail/?md=detail&id=t0%...

 

Booth No. H-40

■ Venue MAP (available in PDF)

designfesta.com/jp/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/vol49_map.pdf

  

If you have time, I will see you.

:)

  

( FUJIFILM GFX50R shot )

  

My room. Chiba. Japan. 2019. shot ... 1 / 1

(Today 's picture, it is unpublished.)

  

Images.

Miles Davis Quintet - Joshua

youtu.be/yLKVkvz0sBw

  

"All Blues" - Miles Davis (Cover) by Jack Thammarat - Funky Jam

youtu.be/4S_jI_YIlUg

  

_________________________________

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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.

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2019/02/2019-profil...

 

youpic.com/photographer/mitsushironakagawa/

_________________________________

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Interviews and novels.

About my book.

  

I published a book in old days.

At that time, I was uploading my interview on the net on the net.

That Japanese and English.

 

I will make it public for free.

Details were explained to the Amazon site.

 

How to write a novel.

How to take pictures.

Distance to the work.

 

They all have a common item.

I made a sentence about what I felt, and left it.

I hope that my text can be read by many people.

Thank you.

 

Mitsushiro.

  

1 Interview in English

「interview_eng.pdf」

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2018/08/interviews-...

 

2 novels. unforgettable 'English version.(This book is Dedicated to the future artist.)

「novel_unforgettable_eng.pdf」

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2018/08/interviews-...

 

3 Interview Japanese version

drive.google.com/file/d/1w5l2hrV5a6lraDiC_Lz2tG_HqatqUCO5...

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2018/08/interviews-...

 

4 novels. unforgettable ' JPN version.

「novel_unforgettable_jpn.pdf」

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2018/08/interviews-...

 

5 A streamlined trajectory. only Japanese.

「streamlined_trajectory.pdf」

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2018/08/interviews-...

 

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iBooks. Electronic Publishing. It is free now.

 

0.about the iBooks.

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2017/03/about-digit...

 

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

 

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

My Novel >> Unforgettable'

 

(This book is Dedicated to the future artist.)

  

Mitsushiro Nakagawa

All Translated by Yumi Ikeda .

www.fotolog.net/yuming/

  

images.

U2 - No Line On The Horizon Live in Dublin

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oKwnkYFsiE&feature=related

  

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/...

 

_________________________________

_________________________________

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.

_________________________________

_________________________________

  

An exhibition in 2019.

May 18th. 19th.

  

theme.

Silence Is the Way.

 

designfesta.com/about-artist-detail/?md=detail&id=t0%...

 

Booth No. H-40

■ Venue MAP (available in PDF)

designfesta.com/jp/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/vol49_map.pdf

 

place. Tokyo Big Site.

www.bigsight.jp/

 

Sponsoring. Design festa.

designfesta.com/

  

2020.

Date unknown.

  

DIC Kawamura Memorial Art Museum attached gallery.

kawamura-museum.dic.co.jp/

 

place. Sakura City, Chiba Prefecture.

 

theme.

From that day, forever ...

 

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

Do you want to hear my voice?

:)

 

I updated Youtube.

It is only in Japanese.

I explained comments on photos etc.

If your time is permitted, please look.

:)

 

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw

 

1

About the composition of the picture posted to Flicker. First type.

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw

 

2

About the composition of the picture posted to Flicker. Second type.

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=443

 

3

About when I started Fotolog. Architect 's point of view.

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=649

 

Four

Why did not you have a camera so far?

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=708

 

Five

What is the coolest thing? The photo is as it is.

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=776

 

6

About the current YouTube bar. I also want to tell, I want to leave.

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=964

 

7

About Japanese photographers. Japanese YouTube bar is Pistols.

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=1059

 

8

The composition of the photograph is sensibility. Meet the designers in Milan. Two questions.

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=1242

 

9

What is a good composition? What is a bad composition?

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=1482

 

Ten

What is the time to point the camera? It is slow if you are looking into the viewfinder or display.

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=1662

 

11

Family photos. I can not take pictures with others. The inside of the subject.

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=1745

 

12

About YouTube 's photographer. Camera technology etc. Sensibility is polished by reading books.

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=2144

 

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.

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=2305

 

14

About Japanese photographers. About the exhibition.

Summary. I wrote a novel etc. What I want to tell the most.

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=2579

 

_________________________________

_________________________________

  

I talked about how to make a work.

It's really long, but I want to leave everything, so please ask. (^ O ^) /

 

Japanese only.

  

About work production 1/2

youtu.be/ZFjqUJn74kM

  

About work production 2/2

youtu.be/pZIbXmnXuCw

 

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?

 

ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimesis

kotobank.jp/word/Mimesis-139464

 

9 What is Individuality? What is originality?

  

It is a flow of.

 

If you have time, please listen.

:)

 

www.youtube.com/user/mitsushiro/

 

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_________________________________

 

Miles Davis sheet 1955-1976.

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2019/05/post-70842e...

 

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

flickr.

www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

YouTube.

www.youtube.com/user/mitsushiro/

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

instagram.

www.instagram.com/mitsushiro_nakagawa/

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

Pinterest.

www.pinterest.jp/mitsushiro/

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

YouPic

youpic.com/photographer/mitsushironakagawa/

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

fotolog

www.fotolog.com/stealaway/

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

twitter.

twitter.com/mitsushiro

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

facebook.

www.facebook.com/mitsushiro.nakagawa

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

Japanese is the following.

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/

 

Title of my book unforgettable' Mitsushiro Nakagawa Out Now. ISBN978-4-86264-866-2

_________________________________

_________________________________

  

タイトル。

Miles Davis sheet 1955 - 1976 .( FUJIFILM GFX50R shot )

  

僕はマイルスデイヴィスの重要な時期をまとめました。僕は、わかりやすい表を欲しかったのです。

今後も補足し続けます。そして、もしもあなたの趣味に合うのならば、僕はとても嬉しいです。

:)

 

1 この表は、マイルスデイヴィスのウィキペディアを参考にしています。理由は、このテキストこそが根幹になると感じたからです。

2 よって、ブートレッグはこの表へ付け足す形になります。また、サントラやマイルスが参加したアルバムは表記にありません。

3 表は、１９５５年から１９７６年までが中心になっています。これは私の趣味を反映させています。

4 今後もこの表は加筆する可能性があります。私はブートレグにも興味があるからです。

5 この表は、日本語版と英語版の二種類を作成します。さらに、PDF、エクセル、ナンバーズの三種類をアップロードします。

6 この表の配色は、マイルスのアルバム、” Birth of cool ”を参考にしました。

 

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2019/05/post-70842e...

  

( FUJIFILM GFX50R shot )

  

２０１９年の展示。

5月１８日。１９日。

 

designfesta.com/about-artist-detail/?md=detail&id=t0%...

  

テーマ。

Silence Is the Way.

 

ブースNo.H-40

■会場MAP(PDFでご覧いただけます)

designfesta.com/jp/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/vol49_map.pdf

 

場所。東京ビッグサイト。

www.bigsight.jp/

 

Sponsoring. Design festa.

designfesta.com/

  

自分の部屋。千葉。日本。2019. shot ... 　1 / 1

(Today 's picture, it is unpublished.)

  

Images.

Miles Davis Quintet - Joshua

youtu.be/yLKVkvz0sBw

  

"All Blues" - Miles Davis (Cover) by Jack Thammarat - Funky Jam

youtu.be/4S_jI_YIlUg

  

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）

  

_________________________________

_________________________________

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。

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2019/02/2019-profil...

 

youpic.com/photographer/mitsushironakagawa/

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

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.

  

１　インタビュー　英語版

「interview_eng.pdf」

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2018/08/interviews-...

 

２　小説。unforgettable’ 英語版。

「novel_unforgettable_eng.pdf」

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2018/08/interviews-...

 

３　インタビュー　日本語版

drive.google.com/file/d/1w5l2hrV5a6lraDiC_Lz2tG_HqatqUCO5...

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2018/08/interviews-...

 

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)

「novel_unforgettable_jpn.pdf」

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2018/08/interviews-...

 

５　流線形の軌跡。　日本語のみ。

「streamlined_trajectory.pdf」

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2018/08/interviews-...

 

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

iBooks.電子出版。（現在は無料）

 

0.about the iBooks.

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2017/03/about-digit...

 

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...

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

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 .

www.fotolog.net/yuming/

  

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 Live in Dublin

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oKwnkYFsiE&feature=related

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

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/...

_________________________________

_________________________________

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。

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

２０１９年の展示。

5月１８日。１９日。

 

テーマ。

Silence Is the Way.

designfesta.com/about-artist-detail/?md=detail&id=t0%...

 

ブースNo.H-40

■会場MAP(PDFでご覧いただけます)

designfesta.com/jp/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/vol49_map.pdf

 

場所。東京ビッグサイト。

www.bigsight.jp/

 

Sponsoring. Design festa.

designfesta.com/

  

２０２０年。

日時未定。

DIC川村記念美術館付属ギャラリー。

kawamura-museum.dic.co.jp/

場所。千葉県佐倉市。

テーマ。

あの日から、ずっと…

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

あなたは僕の声を聞きたいですか？

:)

 

僕はYoutubeを更新しました。

日本語だけです。

僕は写真などの解説をしました。

もしも、あなたの時間が許されれば、見てください。

:)

 

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw

  

1

フリッカーへ投稿した写真の構図について。１種類目。

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw

 

2

フリッカーへ投稿した写真の構図について。２種類目。

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=443

 

3

Fotologを始めた時について。 建築家の視点。

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=649

 

4

なぜ、今までカメラを手にしなかったのか？

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=708

 

5

何が一番かっこいいのか？　写真はありのままに。

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=776

 

6

現在のユーチューバーについて。僕も伝え、残したい。

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=964

 

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。

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=1059

 

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。

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=1242

 

9

良い構図とは？　悪い構図とは？

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=1482

 

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。

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=1662

 

11

家族写真。他人では撮れない。被写体の内面。

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=1745

 

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。

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=2144

 

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。

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=2305

 

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。

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=2579

  

作品の制作方法などついて語りました。

すっごい長いですが、すべて伝え残したいことなので聞いてください。(^O^)／

日本語のみです。

  

作品制作について 1/2

youtu.be/ZFjqUJn74kM

 

作品制作について 2/2

youtu.be/pZIbXmnXuCw

  

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。ミメーシスというもは？

 

　　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/

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

Miles Davis sheet 1955-1976.

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2019/05/post-70842e...

 

_________________________________

_________________________________

flickr.

www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

YouTube.

www.youtube.com/user/mitsushiro/

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

instagram.

www.instagram.com/mitsushiro_nakagawa/

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

Pinterest.

www.pinterest.jp/mitsushiro/

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

YouPic

youpic.com/photographer/mitsushironakagawa/

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

fotolog

www.fotolog.com/stealaway/

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

twitter.

twitter.com/mitsushiro

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

facebook.

www.facebook.com/mitsushiro.nakagawa

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

Japanese is the following.

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/

 

Title of my book unforgettable' Mitsushiro Nakagawa Out Now. ISBN978-4-86264-866-2

_________________________________

_________________________________

  

以下の記事は、GWが明けるまで載せようと思いましたので、載せています。

:)

  

：：：：：：：：：：：：：：：：：：：：：：：：：：：：：：：

：：：：：：：：：：：：：：：：：：：：：：：：：：：：：：：

  

令和になったので、少しまじめな記事を。

:)

  

ピクサーに入社して受けた洗礼「あなたはスティーブ派でしょう？」

headlines.yahoo.co.jp/article?a=20190430-00000005-courrie...

  

この記事、おもしろいです。

そして、この記事元の本が今、アマゾンでトップを独走。

:)

 

これ、おもしろそうです。ひさびさに買いたい本です。

が、ベストセラーになるだろうから、古本待とうかなー

:)

  

PIXAR 世界一のアニメーション企業の今まで語られなかったお金の話 単行本（ソフトカバー） – 2019/3/15

www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/4866511133/ref=ox_sc_act_titl...

  

若い新入社員のみなさんには、ぜひ、聞いて欲しいんですけど、僕は就職した当初からこう信じてやってきました。

『自分が直感で信じられたことは、信じ抜くこと』

 

直感で信じられること、というのは、『それがより正しい判断に近いはずだ』というものです。

この判断と以下の記事が関連してきます。

  

動画

平成31年度東京大学学部入学式　祝辞 東京大学

上野千鶴子氏　祝辞

youtu.be/oIqjJbrdUks

 

テキスト

平成31年度東京大学学部入学式　祝辞

www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/ja/about/president/b_message31_03.html

女子学生の置かれている現実

女性学のパイオニアとして

変化と多様性に拓かれた大学

東京大学で学ぶ価値

というタイトルが並んでいて、お時間がない方には、この締めに当たる『東京大学で学ぶ価値』だけでも読んで欲しい。

 

すばらしいです。

さすが、としかいいようがない祝辞です。

  

このラストパートで僕がもっとも惹かれたのは、もっともラストのテキストにあたるこの部分。

『　… 大学で学ぶ価値とは、すでにある知を身につけることではなく、これまで誰も見たことのない知を生み出すための知を身に付けることだと、わたしは確信しています。知を生み出す知を、メタ知識といいます。そのメタ知識を学生に身につけてもらうことこそが、大学の使命です。ようこそ、東京大学へ。』

  

このお話を読んで、さらに動画を拝見して確信したことは、僕が触れてきたアーティスト。

たとえば、ビートルズ、マイルスデイヴィス、ピカソ、芥川龍之介、モーツァルト。

こういった革新的な作品を発表し続けてきたアーティストらは、既存のアートを吸収し、再構成して、提出しています。

ここでいう『すでにある知から新たな知を生み出す。それをメタ知識という』

  

僕が好きなアーティストらが発表してきた革新的な作品群は、この『メタ知識』にあたります。

  

革新的な作品は、人の目を覚まし、震わせ、息を吹き込みます。

 

東京大学生に限らず、与えられた場所で自分の知のベストを尽くすことが、多くの人への貢献になります。

たとえばiPS細胞はそのベストな例だと僕は思っています。

  

なので、自分の知に溺れ、保身になるのではなく、知を晒して多くの人たちへ尽くしてください。

多くの人への貢献は、なかなか難しいかもしれません。

 

ならば、あなたの身近な人、たったひとりの人だけでも、ベストを尽くしてください。

 

僕は、若手のみなさんに心から期待しています。

  

人って、やれないことってないと僕は思っています。

まずは、なにかをやってみてください。

:)

 

心から期待しています。

:)

  

Mitsushiro. 令和元年　５月１日

  

E

 

Passing Buchanan Bus Station in Glasgow is First Glasgow Alexander Dennis Enviro 400EV City bodied BYD electric double decker 38453 - LG72DYW in an overall advert for British-Supplements.

B. Ruppes Inc is a health supplement store in historic Barelas. Since it's inception at the turn of the century, B. Ruppes Inc has evolved over the years from at one time a full-service pharmacy to it's current state of selling over the counter medicine, traditional Mexican remedies, herbs, vitamins/supplements, and traditional Mexican medicine supplies and needs.

 

This mural in their parking lot and is a must to see.

 

Barelas, Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, NM

Relatively slim pickings on the railway front today with only one non-passenger service on the Tyne Valley line, to break up the monotony of DMU's.

 

On the plus side it was a substantial formation of HOBC stock returning to Tyne Yard following overnight work near Carlisle.

 

66507+563 are in charge for the 1030 Caldew Jn to Tyne S.S as it approaches Blaydon on a sunny 16th August 2015.

アメリカヒトツバタゴ

モクセイ科 / ヒトツバタゴ属

Chionanthus virginicus Linn., 1753

This name is accepted. 04/28, 2022.

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

Family: Oleaceae (APG IV)

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

Authors:

Carl von Linnaeus (1707-1778)

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

Published In:

Species Plantarum 1: 8. 1753. (1 May 1753) (Sp. Pl.)

Name publication detailView in BotanicusView in Biodiversity Heritage Library

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

Annotation:

as "virginica"

Type Specimens:

LT: ; ; (LINN-21.1) LT designated by Reveal, Regnum Veg. 127: 33 (1993)

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

Synonyms:

Chionanthus angustifolius Raf., New flora and botany of North America, or, A supplemental flora, additional to all the botanical works on North America and the United States. Containing 1000 new or revised species. 3: 88. 1838. (New Fl.)

Chionanthus cotinifolius Willd., Sp. Pl., ed. 4 [Willdenow] 1(1): 47 (1797).

Chionanthus fragrans Edwards ex Steud., Nomencl. Bot. [Steudel], ed. 2. 1: 351 (1840).

Chionanthus heterophyla Raf., New flora and botany of North America, or, A supplemental flora, additional to all the botanical works on North America and the United States. Containing 1000 new or revised species. 3: 87. 1838. (New Fl.)

Chionanthus latifolius Aiton ex Steud., Nomencl. Bot. [Steudel], ed. 2. 1: 350 (1840).

Chionanthus longifolius Raf., New flora and botany of North America, or, A supplemental flora, additional to all the botanical works on North America and the United States. Containing 1000 new or revised species. 3: 88. 1838. (New Fl.)

Chionanthus luteus hort. ex Lavallée, Énum. Arbres 173 (1877).

Chionanthus maritimus (Pursh) Sweet, Hort. Brit. [Sweet], ed. 2. 351 (1830).

Chionanthus montanus (Pursh) Raf., New flora and botany of North America, or, A supplemental flora, additional to all the botanical works on North America and the United States. Containing 1000 new or revised species. 3: 87. 1838. (New Fl.)

Chionanthus obovatus Raf., New flora and botany of North America, or, A supplemental flora, additional to all the botanical works on North America and the United States. Containing 1000 new or revised species. 3: 87. 1838. (New Fl.)

Chionanthus roseus Barton, Fl. Virgin. (Barton) 2 (1812); cf. Pennell in Bartonia, 1925-6, No. 9, 28 (1926). (1812).

Chionanthus trifidus Moench, Methodus (Moench) 478 (1794).

Chionanthus triflorus Stokes, Bot. Mat. Med. i. 19 (1812).

Chionanthus vernalis Salisb., Prodr. Stirp. Chap. Allerton 14 (1796).

Chionanthus vernus Baill., Hist. Pl. (Baillon) 1: 295 (1869).

Chionanthus virginicus subsp. maritimus (Pursh) A.E.Murray, Kalmia 12: 19 (1982).

Chionanthus virginicus var. angustifolius Aiton, Hort. Kew. [W. Aiton] 1: 14 (1789).

Chionanthus virginicus var. latifolius Aiton, Hort. Kew. [W. Aiton] 1: 14 (1789).

Chionanthus virginicus var. maritimus Pursh, Fl. Amer. Sept. (Pursh) 1: 8 (1813).

Chionanthus virginicus var. montanus Pursh, Fl. Amer. Sept. (Pursh) 1: 8 (1813).

Chionanthus zeylanicus Lam., Tabl. Encycl. i. 30 (1791).

Ligustrum cotinifolium (Willd.) Jacques, Manuel Général des Plantes 3: 3. 1857. (Man. Gén. Pl.)

Linociera cotinifolia (Willd.) Vahl, Enum. Pl. Obs. 1: 46. 1804. (Enum. Pl. Obs.)

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

Accepted By:

Anonymous. 1986. List-Based Rec., Soil Conserv. Serv., U.S.D.A. Database of the U.S.D.A., Beltsville.

Correll, D. S. & M. C. Johnston. 1970. Man. Vasc. Pl. Texas i–xv, 1–1881. The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson.

Fernald, M. 1950. Manual (ed. 8) i–lxiv, 1–1632. American Book Co., New York.

Gleason, H. A. 1968. The Sympetalous Dicotyledoneae. vol. 3. 596 pp. In H. A. Gleason Ill. Fl. N.E. U.S.. New York Botanical Garden, New York.

Gleason, H. A. & A. J. Cronquist. 1991. Man. Vasc. Pl. N.E. U.S. (ed. 2) i–910. New York Botanical Garden, Bronx.

Godfrey, R. K. & J. W. Wooten. 1981. Aquatic Wetland Pl. S.E. U.S. Dicot. 1–944. Univ. Georgia Press, Athens.

Radford, A. E., H. E. Ahles & C. R. Bell. 1968. Man. Vasc. Fl. Carolinas i–lxi, 1–1183. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.

Small, J. K. 1933. Man. S.E. Fl. i–xxii, 1–1554. Published by the Author, New York. View in BotanicusView in Biodiversity Heritage Library

Ulloa Ulloa, C., P. Acevedo-Rodríguez, S. G. Beck, M. J. Belgrano, R. Bernal González, P. E. Berry, L. Brako, M. Celis, G. Davidse, S. R. Gradstein, O. Hokche, B. León, S. León-Yánez, R. E. Magill, D. A. Neill, M. H. Nee, P. H. Raven, H. Stimmel, M. T. Strong, J. L. Villaseñor Ríos, J. L. Zarucchi, F. O. Zuloaga & P. M. Jørgensen. 2017. An integrated assessment of vascular plants species of the Americas. Science 358: 1614–1617 [Online Suppl. Materials: 1–23 + 1–2497], f. 1–4 [f. S1–5].

Ulloa Ulloa, C., P. Acevedo-Rodríguez, S. G. Beck, M. J. Belgrano, R. Bernal González, P. E. Berry, L. Brako, M. Celis, G. Davidse, S. R. Gradstein, O. Hokche, B. León, S. León-Yánez, R. E. Magill, D. A. Neill, M. H. Nee, P. H. Raven, H. Stimmel, M. T. Strong, J. L. Villaseñor Ríos, J. L. Zarucchi, F. O. Zuloaga & P. M. Jørgensen. 2018 [Onwards]. An integrated Assessment of Vascular Plants Species of the Americas (Online Updates).

Wunderlin, R. P. 1998. Guide Vasc. Pl. Florida i–x, 1–806. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.

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

  

SONY NEX-5R

OLYMPUS OM Zuiko MC Auto Macro 50mm F3.5

title.

Live shot 41.

(FUJIFILM GFX50R shot)

  

Record of shooting.

 

Date and time. July 7, 2019.

place. live house. Anti-knock. Shinjuku ward. Tokyo. Japan.

the weather. It was raining, but on the first basement floor.

Live time. About 40 minutes.

Remarks.

I don't use a tripod.

I'm shooting alone.

I don't use a flash.

I don't use food.

  

Copyright. Moth in Lilac. All Rights Reserved. / mothinlilac.com

  

live house. ANTI KNOCK. Shinjuku ward. Tokyo. Japan. July 7. 2019. shot ... ... 55 / 68

(Today 's picture, it is unpublished.)

 

Shooting: Editing: Configuration = Mitsushiro “stealaway” Nakagawa.

  

Moth in Lilac. : twitter.com/Moth_in_Lilac

Ayano : vocal : twitter.com/sfn_ayano

Lisa 13 : guitar : twitter.com/lhjw121315666

NalchaRos : bass : twitter.com/Nalu_chaRos223

You : guitar : twitter.com/you_ogami

M9N : drums : twitter.com/mokuniuka

 

Management office.

V.I.P. Design Machine : twitter.com/vipdm69

  

New mini Album. OUT NOW.

Mayve U

www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B07T8XM9RR/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_XHn...

  

Images.

Moth in Lilac / Maybe U

youtu.be/DSJFiU8GvNc

  

Official.

mothinlilac.com

 

YOUTUBE.

youtu.be/EsmoinoNQEU

 

Apple Music.

music.apple.com/jp/album/moth-in-lilac/1441243472

  

Live schedule.

  

October 6, 2019. Shibuya. Guilty.

November 1, 2019. Kichijoji. crescendo.

 

www.kichijoji-crescendo.net/top2013.html

www.guilty.ne.jp

  

_________________________________

_________________________________

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.

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2019/02/2019-profil...

 

youpic.com/photographer/mitsushironakagawa/

_________________________________

_________________________________

  

_________________________________

_________________________________

  

Interviews and novels.

About my book.

  

I published a book in old days.

At that time, I was uploading my interview on the net on the net.

That Japanese and English.

 

I will make it public for free.

Details were explained to the Amazon site.

 

How to write a novel.

How to take pictures.

Distance to the work.

 

They all have a common item.

I made a sentence about what I felt, and left it.

I hope that my text can be read by many people.

Thank you.

 

Mitsushiro.

  

1 Interview in English

「interview_eng.pdf」

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2018/08/interviews-...

 

2 novels. unforgettable 'English version.(This book is Dedicated to the future artist.)

「novel_unforgettable_eng.pdf」

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2018/08/interviews-...

 

3 Interview Japanese version

drive.google.com/file/d/1w5l2hrV5a6lraDiC_Lz2tG_HqatqUCO5...

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2018/08/interviews-...

 

4 novels. unforgettable ' JPN version.

「novel_unforgettable_jpn.pdf」

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2018/08/interviews-...

 

5 A streamlined trajectory. only Japanese.

「streamlined_trajectory.pdf」

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2018/08/interviews-...

 

_________________________________

_________________________________

  

iBooks. Electronic Publishing. It is free now.

 

0.about the iBooks.

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2017/03/about-digit...

 

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

 

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

My Novel >> Unforgettable'

 

(This book is Dedicated to the future artist.)

  

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.

 

※ Supplement

I use Google Translate.

  

Mitsushiro Nakagawa

All Translated by Yumi Ikeda .

www.fotolog.net/yuming/

  

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

 

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

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/...

 

_________________________________

_________________________________

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.

_________________________________

_________________________________

  

2020 exhibition.

 

theme.

So Near, So far.

 

place. Tokyo Big Site.

www.bigsight.jp/

 

Sponsoring. Design festa.

designfesta.com/

  

2021.

Date unknown.

  

DIC Kawamura Memorial Art Museum attached gallery.

kawamura-museum.dic.co.jp/

 

place. Sakura City, Chiba Prefecture.

 

theme.

From that day, forever ...

 

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

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...

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

Do you want to hear my voice?

:)

 

I updated Youtube.

It is only in Japanese.

I explained comments on photos etc.

If your time is permitted, please look.

:)

 

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw

 

1

About the composition of the picture posted to Flicker. First type.

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw

 

2

About the composition of the picture posted to Flicker. Second type.

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=443

 

3

About when I started Fotolog. Architect 's point of view.

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=649

 

4

Why did not you have a camera so far?

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=708

 

5

What is the coolest thing? The photo is as it is.

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=776

 

6

About the current YouTube bar. I also want to tell, I want to leave.

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=964

 

7

About Japanese photographers. Japanese YouTube bar is Pistols.

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=1059

 

8

The composition of the photograph is sensibility. Meet the designers in Milan. Two questions.

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=1242

 

9

What is a good composition? What is a bad composition?

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=1482

 

10

What is the time to point the camera? It is slow if you are looking into the viewfinder or display.

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=1662

 

11

Family photos. I can not take pictures with others. The inside of the subject.

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=1745

 

12

About YouTube 's photographer. Camera technology etc. Sensibility is polished by reading books.

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=2144

 

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.

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=2305

 

14

About Japanese photographers. About the exhibition.

Summary. I wrote a novel etc. What I want to tell the most.

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=2579

 

_________________________________

_________________________________

  

I talked about how to make a work.

It's really long, but I want to leave everything, so please ask. (^ O ^) /

 

Japanese only.

  

About work production 1/2

youtu.be/ZFjqUJn74kM

  

About work production 2/2

youtu.be/pZIbXmnXuCw

 

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?

 

ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimesis

kotobank.jp/word/Mimesis-139464

 

9 What is Individuality? What is originality?

  

It is a flow of.

 

If you have time, please listen.

:)

 

www.youtube.com/user/mitsushiro/

 

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

Miles Davis sheet 1955-1976.

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2019/05/post-70842e...

 

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

flickr.

www.flickr.com/photos/stealaway/

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

YouTube.

www.youtube.com/user/mitsushiro/

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

instagram.

www.instagram.com/mitsushiro_nakagawa/

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

Pinterest.

www.pinterest.jp/mitsushiro/

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

YouPic

youpic.com/photographer/mitsushironakagawa/

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

fotolog

www.fotolog.com/stealaway/

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

twitter.

twitter.com/mitsushiro

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

facebook.

www.facebook.com/mitsushiro.nakagawa

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

My statistics. (As of May 16, 2019)

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2019/05/post-199d28...

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

Japanese is the following.

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/

 

Title of my book unforgettable' Mitsushiro Nakagawa Out Now. ISBN978-4-86264-866-2

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

#新宿 #Manhattan #USA #London #UK #Paris #アンチノック #Milan #Italy #LUMIX #G3 #FUJIFILM #MothinLilac #MIL #GFX50R #B&W #Mono #Chiba #Japan #Exhibition #Flickr #YOUPIC #gallery #Camera #collage #Subway #street #Novel #Publishing #Mitsushiro #Nakagawa #artist #NY #Interview #Photograph #picture #How #take #write #novel #display #art #future #designfesta #Kawamura #Memorial #DIC #Museum #Fineart

 

For insta

#新宿 #Manhattan #London #Paris #アンチノック #Milan #MothinLilac #LUMIX #MIL #FUJIFILM #GFX50R #B&W #Fineart #Japan #Exhibition #Flickr #YOUPIC #Camera #Subway #street #Novel #Publishing #Mitsushiro #artist #Photograph #picture #novel #Fineart #future #designfesta

 

For twitter

#NY #London #Paris #Milan #LUMIX #FUJIFILM #新宿 #B&W #Exhibition #Flickr #Camera #street #MIL #MothinLilac #Mitsushiro #artist #アンチノック #designfesta #Fineart

  

タイトル。

Live shot 41.

( FUJIFILM GFX50R shot )

  

撮影の記録。

日時。２０１９年７月７日。

場所。ライブハウス。アンチノック。新宿区。東京都。日本。

天候。雨だったけど、地下一階。

ライブの時間。約４０分。

備考。

三脚は使っていません。

撮影は一人で行っています。

フラッシュも使っていません。

フードも使っていません。

  

Copyright. Moth in Lilac. All Rights Reserved. / mothinlilac.com

  

ライブハウス。アンチノック。新宿区。東京。日本。 7月7日。2019. shot ... 　... 55 / 68

(Today 's picture, it is unpublished.)

 

撮影：編集：構成 ＝ Mitsushiro “stealaway” Nakagawa.

  

Images.

Moth in Lilac / Maybe U

youtu.be/DSJFiU8GvNc

  

Moth in Lilac. : twitter.com/Moth_in_Lilac

Ayano : vocal : twitter.com/sfn_ayano

Lisa 13 : guitar : twitter.com/lhjw121315666

NalchaRos : bass : twitter.com/Nalu_chaRos223

You : guitar : twitter.com/you_ogami

M9N : drums : twitter.com/mokuniuka

 

Management office.

V.I.P. Design Machine : twitter.com/vipdm69

  

New mini Album. OUT NOW.

Mayve U

www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B07T8XM9RR/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_XHn...

  

Official.

mothinlilac.com

 

YOUTUBE

youtu.be/EsmoinoNQEU

 

Apple Music

music.apple.com/jp/album/moth-in-lilac/1441243472

  

ライブ予定。

  

２０１９年１０月６日。渋谷。ギルティ。

２０１９年１１月１日。吉祥寺。クレッシェンド。

 

www.kichijoji-crescendo.net/top2013.html

www.guilty.ne.jp

  

_________________________________

_________________________________

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。

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2019/02/2019-profil...

 

youpic.com/photographer/mitsushironakagawa/

_________________________________

_________________________________

  

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

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.

  

１　インタビュー　英語版

「interview_eng.pdf」

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2018/08/interviews-...

 

２　小説。unforgettable’ 英語版。

「novel_unforgettable_eng.pdf」

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2018/08/interviews-...

 

３　インタビュー　日本語版

drive.google.com/file/d/1w5l2hrV5a6lraDiC_Lz2tG_HqatqUCO5...

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2018/08/interviews-...

 

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。

 

「novel_unforgettable_jpn.pdf」

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2018/08/interviews-...

 

５　流線形の軌跡。　日本語のみ。

「streamlined_trajectory.pdf」

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2018/08/interviews-...

 

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

iBooks.電子出版。（現在は無料）

 

0.about the iBooks.

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2017/03/about-digit...

 

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...

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

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 .

www.fotolog.net/yuming/

  

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 Live in Dublin

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oKwnkYFsiE&feature=related

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

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/...

_________________________________

_________________________________

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。

_________________________________

_________________________________

  

２０２０年の展示。

 

テーマ。

So Near , So far.

 

場所。東京ビッグサイト。

www.bigsight.jp/

 

Sponsoring. Design festa.

designfesta.com/

  

２０２１年。

日時未定。

DIC川村記念美術館付属ギャラリー。

kawamura-museum.dic.co.jp/

場所。千葉県佐倉市。

テーマ。

あの日から、ずっと…

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

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...

_________________________________

_________________________________

 

あなたは僕の声を聞きたいですか？

:)

 

僕はYoutubeを更新しました。

日本語だけです。

僕は写真などの解説をしました。

もしも、あなたの時間が許されれば、見てください。

:)

 

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw

  

1

フリッカーへ投稿した写真の構図について。１種類目。

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw

 

2

フリッカーへ投稿した写真の構図について。２種類目。

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=443

 

3

Fotologを始めた時について。 建築家の視点。

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=649

 

4

なぜ、今までカメラを手にしなかったのか？

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=708

 

5

何が一番かっこいいのか？　写真はありのままに。

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=776

 

6

現在のユーチューバーについて。僕も伝え、残したい。

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=964

 

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。

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=1059

 

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。

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=1242

 

9

良い構図とは？　悪い構図とは？

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=1482

 

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。

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=1662

 

11

家族写真。他人では撮れない。被写体の内面。

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=1745

 

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。

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=2144

 

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。

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=2305

 

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。

youtu.be/b1o6Xf-Mjhw?t=2579

  

作品の制作方法などついて語りました。

すっごい長いですが、すべて伝え残したいことなので聞いてください。(^O^)／

日本語のみです。

  

作品制作について 1/2

youtu.be/ZFjqUJn74kM

 

作品制作について 2/2

youtu.be/pZIbXmnXuCw

  

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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Miles Davis sheet 1955-1976.

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2019/05/post-70842e...

 

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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/mitsushiro/

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YouPic

youpic.com/photographer/mitsushironakagawa/

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fotolog

www.fotolog.com/stealaway/

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twitter.

twitter.com/mitsushiro

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facebook.

www.facebook.com/mitsushiro.nakagawa

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僕の統計。（2019年5月16日現在）

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2019/05/post-199d28...

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「日本の経営者は奇跡的無能」

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/stealaway/2019/06/post-926bf5...

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Japanese is the following.

stealaway.cocolog-nifty.com/

 

Title of my book unforgettable' Mitsushiro Nakagawa Out Now. ISBN978-4-86264-866-2

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#新宿 #Manhattan #USA #London #UK #Paris #アンチノック #Milan #Italy #LUMIX #G3 #FUJIFILM #MothinLilac #MIL #GFX50R #B&W #Mono #Chiba #Japan #Exhibition #Flickr #YOUPIC #gallery #Camera #collage #Subway #street #Novel #Publishing #Mitsushiro #Nakagawa #artist #NY #Interview #Photograph #picture #How #take #write #novel #display #art #future #designfesta #Kawamura #Memorial #DIC #Museum #Fineart

 

For insta

#新宿 #Manhattan #London #Paris #アンチノック #Milan #MothinLilac #LUMIX #MIL #FUJIFILM #GFX50R #B&W #Fineart #Japan #Exhibition #Flickr #YOUPIC #Camera #Subway #street #Novel #Publishing #Mitsushiro #artist #Photograph #picture #novel #Fineart #future #designfesta

 

For twitter

#NY #London #Paris #Milan #LUMIX #FUJIFILM #新宿 #B&W #Exhibition #Flickr #Camera #street #MIL #MothinLilac #Mitsushiro #artist #アンチノック #designfesta #Fineart

  

撮影の記録。

 

日時。２０１９年７月７日。

場所。ライブハウス。アンチノック。新宿区。東京都。日本。

天候。雨だったけど、地下一階。

ライブの時間。約４０分。

備考。

三脚は使っていません。

撮影は一人で行っています。

フラッシュも使っていません。

フードも使っていません。

  

アイフォーン１１　プロ　シルバー　５１２GB をソフトバンクで買いました。

:)

 

で、ソフトバンクのサイトから予約したんですけど、アップルケアへ入るには、

ソフトバンクさんの『安心保証プラスアップルケア』みたいなのに、予約と同時に入らないと後で入ることはできません。

が、

アイフォーン１１プロが届いてから、アップルとの契約で、『アップルケア（盗難紛失保証付）』などへ、　iOSの設定から入れます。

で、ここで何度かチャレンジしたんですけど、まるでできませんでした。

 

という、動画をアップしますのでお時間がある方は見てください。

:)

  

YouTube.

www.youtube.com/user/mitsushiro/

  

E

 

I've gone for a little 'rewind' here with this shot of new to Mainline B6LE Wright Crusader pictured in St Budeaux square working back from Saltash to Plymouth on what was back then the old 'Red Line' route 1 & 2.

I remembered when this one turned up from South Yorkshire, it still had the LEDs programmed to destinations from up North!

We had all of the N-BKY batch here at Plymouth at one point along with N144BWG & M918MRW, they supplemented the native B6BLEs W-PAF batch on the then colour branded routes around Plymouth.

Seen in Buchanan Bus Station is First Glasgow Alexander Dennis Enviro 400 City EV 38444 - LG22AVV in an overall advert for "British Supplements". One of eight First Glasgow vehicles to be treated.

☼ ☼ ☼ Summer illustrations for the cultural supplement of De Morgen (belgian newspaper) ☼ ☼ ☼

 

Depending on which 'snake oil' salesman you talk to, bladder wrack can be used to benefit all sorts of health conditions, but medical evidence as to it's efficacy is thin on the ground.

 

One definite benefit is not to fall in the water while trying to photograph it.

 

Snaefellsnes Peninsular, Iceland.

April 2016. © David Hill

26th June 2019:

 

The last time we saw our GP I said that I'd been feeing a bit below Par and asked about a vitamin supplement.

This sort is the only one covered on the 100% medical insurance, which is what I wanted.

 

It's a complete meal in itself so I have it for breakfast. I have chocolate, vanilla, cappuccino and caramel favoured ones, but sadly they all seem to have the same taste - synthetic. :0(

 

However, I'm sure they're doing me the world of good - or I hope they are!!

 

The prescription was for 24 and I still have rather a lot left. One thing I found was putting them in the fridge over night made them slightly more agreeable to eat.

 

Better viewed large and thank you for your favourites. :O)

 

www.flickr.com/groups/2019_one_photo_each_day/

Vitamins offer a variety of health advantages. Vitamins can aid in addressing your deficiencies in vitamins. They boost your digestion system, immune system and also cell growth. It improves your energy levels and improves your focus.

 

Get the vitamin deficiencies in your diet

 

A lot of people suffer from nutritional deficiencies due to poor diet. Multivitamins can be taken by people who are deficient in minerals or vitamins. Multivitamins are beneficial for children, pregnant women or anyone taking treatment to meet vitamin requirements. Some people are very picky about foods, so they receive benefits from vitamins.

 

Boost your energy level

 

Many liquid vitamins and chewings are available in the marketplace to immediately increase the energy level of your body. Vitamins that aren't soluble in water don't stay within your body for long. Your body needs fresh vitamins to stay active.

 

Supplements that include Vitamin B6, B12, and folic acids can boost your energy level through direct diluting of blood vessels. Vitamin B and Vitamin C dissolve easily in water and are later absorbed into bloodstreams to ease symptoms. The excess vitamins are extracted through urine.

 

Concentrate more

 

Vitamin B can be a problem if you have difficulty focusing and easily distracted. Vitamin B3, Vitamin B9 and Vitamin B12 will assist you in focusing and staying focused better. Vitamin B3 and Vitamin B9 increase your cognitive capacity as well as your learning capacity and productivity. It also helps you focus and concentrate better. dailylifesupplements.com/

I must be easily pleased - but, this small illustrated colour booklet of some 16 pages is so beautifully produced and is about such an esoteric subject as halibut oil that it is a gem! It was issued about 1950 I would say, given the style and 'feel', and was printed at The Fanfare Press, London, for The Crookes Laboratories who were based at Park Royal in north west London and from where they manufactured many vitamins and supplements including those made from halibut liver oil that provided Vitamin D.

 

Crookes have a fascinating history and they still exist as a multinational concern, based in Nottingham, as they had been for many years part of Boots the Chemists who had acquired them in 1971. Boots bought the company from the Park Royal 'neighbours' Guinness who had an interest in Crookes from 1960 when they'd jointly bought them along with a division of Philips. They're now owned by Reckitt Benckiser who took over Boots Healthcare manufacturing division in 2005.

 

The origins of the company go back to the eminant scientist Sir William Crookes, he of the Crookes Tube that allowed the development of many other technologies. It was his son, Henry, who started making colloids in around 1912 and whose concern became part of British Colloids in 1919, the name changing to Crookes Laboratories in 1951.

 

According to the booklet much clever technology was required from when the fresh halibut livers arrived at Park Royal until the purified capsules left! The charming illustrations and text look at the need for and importance of Vitamin D in such a sun-drenched country as the UK and the various demanding life and work styles encountered by many people. The illustrations are all signed "Xenia" and I'm tempted to think this is no other than Xenia Kashevaroff Cage (1913 - 1995?), the US born artist of some renown but whose work was overshadowed by her one time husband John Cage.

 

It seems a bit far fetched but Xenia, noted for sculptural forms and mobiles, did a series of posters for BOAC at around the same time and the style is so very similar. Hopefully this can be confirmed one way or the other! This page is striking - I'm not sure if this is Mr A D Green striding manfully along the street protected by his hat, brolly, gloves and Vitamin D!

  

A striking advert on the back cover of the Sheffield Telegraph's 1934 Industrial Supplement showing a towering viaduct, no doubt manufactured using Caesar Brand Portland Cement as supplied by the Doncaster based concern of Contract & Works Supply Co. (Tom Parry) Ltd. The advert also notes Cæsarapid Brand cement that cured to meet the British Standard 7 day test in 24 hours.

 

The advert also shows the logo for the manufacturers of Cæsar Brand cements, the Central Portland Cement Co lTd who were based at Kirton Lindsey, south of Scunthorpe in Lincolnshire and who appear to have been producing various products there from 1882 until 1976. The concern was under various ownerships at different times and in 1935 it was purchased by the new start Alpha Cement, formed in 1933 and with apparent links to US producers. Alpha grew through various takeovers and by 1938 it was sold, jointly, to Tunnel and Blue Circle - Blue Circle taking full control in 1949.

In camera multiple exposure.

www.pinterest.co.uk/johnseven47/works-of-unquestionable-g...

ARRIVA Buses Wales VDL Commander 2504 - CX54 EPJ sets off from Rhyl on a Sunday journey on route 51 to Denbigh.

  

Spider-Girl (1998-2006) # 90

After being morphed into a series of odd creatures, Spider-Girl goes out to stop a crime spree but finds herself going against Misery.

 

What If? (1977-1984) # 1

What if Spider-Man joined the Fantastic Four?

 

Venom: Space Knight (2015-2016) # 1

In space, no one can hear you scream...with excitement! Flash Thompson is a lot of things. Soldier. Veteran. Double amputee. Host to a powerful alien symbiote. Now, apart from the Guardians of the Galaxy, Flash has also been tasked with being an intergalactic ambassador of Earth and an Agent of the Cosmos. What does that mean? It means Flash Thompson will be what he's always wanted to be: A Big. Damn. Hero. It's high adventure in deep space as Venom swashbuckles his way across the universe!

 

True Believers: Phoenix Presents Jean Grey Vs. Sabretooth (2017) # 1

Reprinting X-MEN (1991) # 28

 

True Believers: Phoenix Returns (2017) # 1

Reprinting Fantastic Four (1961) # 286

 

True Believers: Wolverine vs. Venom (2018) # 1

Reprinting Venom: Tooth and Claw # 1

 

The Edge published a lookbook supplement to Windlight Magazine today, showcasing the incredible talents of The Edge Stylists. This is the image I did for my Editorial to the lookbook.

 

Twice a year we will be showcasing the work of our outstanding new collective of Edge Stylists. The Stylist group was formed recently to include some of the most outstanding and creative stylists, models, bloggers and photographers to grace the current Fashion Scene in SL. They will help the Edge in its mission to promote the creative and artistic side of SL Fashion, both in imagery and in design and presentation. In real life, Fashion thrives and feeds on creativity, with inspiration sparking inspiration. Even in a smaller SL Fashion community than there has been in past years, it is important to continue to champion creative expression and to help the process of nurturing new inspiration. Fashion is generally considered to be an 'applied art' but I personally consider styling, in SL at least, to be a true form of creative expression, especially combined with talented and expressive photography. It is for these talents that I chose the Stylists who make up the Edge Collective.

 

As our Edge Stylist Group is so new, this first Special Supplement is not themed. Our Stylists have been given a completely free rein to showcase their talents. In these pages you will find a diverse and beautiful collection of images. More will be coming from the Edge over the coming year, so watch this space.

 

Eleseren Brianna - Editor and Curator of The Edge

 

Windlight Magazine - issuu.com/windlightmagazine/docs/april-2016-backup

 

Edge Supplement - issuu.com/windlightmagazine/docs/the_edge-spring2016

 

Editorial Image - style credits

 

LIBERTINE Jacket - red - sYs

Bandage Suit - black - ISON

Urbanista Latex leggings - {Indyra}

Sorucis Thigh Boots - Shoenique

Scatterheart Necklace - black - FINESMITH

Love Entwined Ear Cuffs - Chop Zuey

Lolita Paragorn Ring - Lazuri

Hair - Tijana - RAW HOUSE

Makeup - League, Soiree, MONS, {MUA}, R3i

 

Photo by Eleseren Brianna

   

Vintage sign sketching . More here:

sketchaway.wordpress.com/2016/03/23/vintage-signage-and-t...

There’s also homemade bacon-infused butter, lobster butter, truffle aioli, and cocktail sauce can be added for $4 supplement each.

 

Lbs

100 Yonge St.

Toronto, ON

(647) 351-4747

lbstoronto.com

Twitter: @LbsToronto

 

Owners: Jonathan Gonsenhauser and Will Tomlinson

 

Introducing for TorontoLife: torontolife.com/food/restaurants/lbs-pounds-lobster-burge...

This craft is not the venerable T-65B from the the original trilogy, nor is it the T-70 from the new trilogy. This X-Wing is the XJ-3 model featured in the old Star Wars Expanded Universe material of the 80s and 90s. The XJ-3 was built by Incom to supplement the newer, more advanced, but considerably more expensive and complex E-Wing fighters. The advancements made over the T-65 model are newer engines, bolstered shields, and a better armament. The XJ-3's laser cannons could be fired in "Stutter-fire" mode, which allowed it to shoot through the shields of Yuuzhan Vong ships (which also means that it shoots blue pew pews instead of red). Instead of 2 torpedo launchers, the XJ-3 had three.

 

Gizza Supplement

 

Model and Photographer: Me

We're here to help you live a healthier life by offering you supplements for various needs like vitamins, 💊minerals, fiber, fatty acids and amino acids. 🍃 💚

Your body always needs the right nutrients. We're here to help you get them.

Atlanticwall Regelbau S75 & S80 - 38 cm S.K.C/34 Naval Gun - The Adolf Gun Bunker.

 

YouTube Video

YouTube Video in 360°

YouTube Channel

 

S75 is the ammunition depot of the Bunker and

The S80 is the for machine room and room for crew.

 

The 38 cm SK C/34 naval gun was developed by Germany mid to late 1930s. It armed the Bismarck-class battleships and was planned as the armament of the O-class battlecruisers and the re-armed Scharnhorst-class battleships. Six twin-gun mountings were also sold to the Soviet Union and it was planned to use them on the Kronshtadt-class battlecruisers, however they were never delivered. Spare guns were used as coastal artillery in Denmark, Norway and France. One gun is currently on display at Møvig Fortress outside Kristiansand.

 

Ammunition

It used the standard German naval system of ammunition where the base charge was held in a metallic cartridge case and supplemented by another charge in a silk bag. Both cartridges were rammed together.

 

Propellant charge

Main charge: 38 cm HuelsKart34 – GefLdG – 108 kg (238 lb) RPC 38 (16/7)

 

Fore charge: 38 cm VorKart34 – GefLdG – 104 kg (229 lb) RPC 38 (16/7)

 

Shell

Four types of shells were used by the 38 cm SK C/34 although the Siegfried-Granate could only be used by the coast defense versions. Almost 40 percent lighter, this latter shell could be fired with a reduced charge at 920 metres per second (3,000 ft/s) out to 40 kilometres (44,000 yd). With a full charge it reached 1,050 metres per second (3,400 ft/s) and could travel 55.7 kilometres (60,900 yd) – over 34 miles.

 

Naval gun

The data given is according to Krupp datasheet 38 cm S.K.C/34 e WA52-453(e). This gun was mounted in pairs in the Drh.L. C/34e turret which allowed elevation from -5° 30' to +30°. Each gun had an individual cradle, spaced 3.5 metres (11 ft) apart, but they were normally coupled together. In general the turret was hydraulically powered, but the training gear, auxiliary elevation, auxiliary hoists and some loading gear was electrically powered. The turrets weighed 1,048 tonnes (1,031 long tons; 1,155 short tons) to 1,056 tonnes (1,039 long tons; 1,164 short tons), rested on ball bearings on a 8.75 metres (28.7 ft) diameter track, could elevate 6° per second and traverse 5.4° per second. The guns were loaded at +2.5° and used a telescoping chain-operated rammer. According to German manuals the required permanent capacity for the loading equipment for ammunition was 2.5 shells per minute. During testing period at the Baltic Sea the AVKS Report states an output of the ammunition delivery system up to 3.125 shells per minute. Under battle conditions Bismarck averaged roughly one round per minute in her battle with HMS Hood and Prince of Wales.

 

These guns were modified with a larger chamber for coast defense duties to handle the increased amount of propellant used for the special long-range Siegfried shells. Gander and Chamberlain quote a weight of 105.3 tonnes (103.6 long tons; 116.1 short tons) for these guns, presumably accounting for the extra volume of the enlarged chamber. An armored single mount, the Bettungsschiessgerüst ("Firing platform") C/39 was used by these guns. It had a maximum elevation of 60° and could traverse up to 360°, depending on the emplacement. The C/39 mount had two compartments; the upper housed the guns and their loading equipment, while the lower contained the ammunition hoists, their motors, and the elevation and traverse motors. The mount was fully powered and had an underground magazine. Normally these were placed in open concrete barbettes, relying on their armor, but Hitler thought that there was not enough protection for the guns of Battery Todt emplaced on Cap-Gris-Nez in the Pas de Calais near Wimereux and ordered a concrete casemate 3.5 m (11 ft) thick built over and around the mounts. This had the unfortunate effect of limiting their traverse to 120°. Other C/39 mounts were installed at the Hanstholm fortress in Denmark, and the Vara fortress in Kristiansand, Norway.

 

Four Drh LC/34 turrets, three of which were originally intended to re-arm the Gneisenau and one completed to the Soviet order, modified for land service, were planned to be emplaced at Paimpol, Brittany and on the Cap de la Hague on the Cotentin Peninsula, but construction never actually began. Construction for two of those turrets was well underway at Blaavand-Oksby, Denmark when the war ended.

 

how is a Regelbau

Before and during World War II, the Wehrmacht built several standardised bunkers and weapon positions in Germany and German-occupied countries. These buildings were called Regelbau, i.e. standardised buildings.

 

The Regelbau (German for "standard design") were a series of standardised bunker designs built in large numbers by the Germans in the Siegfried Line (German: Westwall) and the Atlantic Wall as part of their defensive fortifications prior to and during the Second World War.

 

#Bunker #WorldWar2 #Atlanticwall

Optare Solo 47281 deputising on the Hospital Direct 59 on Guild Street.

This is an 1891 vintage Bausch & Lomb 4x6 Rapid Rectilinear lens in a Unicum shutter, rigged for macro shooting using an internal lens cell from badly damaged 7x35mm binoculars mounted on the front. The RR lens has several empty 52mm filter rings flange-mounted to the back, and fitted to a modified T-mount adapter. This is on the front of a short bellows unit from a Spiratone Bellow-Dupliscope slide copier. Maximum extension from the camera lens mount to the front of the auxiliary lens on the RR is about 5 inches. The Rapid Rectilinear is incapable of producing macro images without an outrageous amount of extension, unless it's fitted with a supplemental lens, as shown here. I tested the set-up on my home-made "night shooting" macro bracket. The RR lens apertures run from f/8 to f/128. Best results were achieved at f/64, but the depth of field was exceedingly shallow. A "mini-mag" flashlight was pre-aimed at the focal point to provide enough illumination for focusing. The shutter of the RR lens was left open using the "T" setting, with the exposure made by the Nikon D60 body. Here's a test image taken with this setup:

www.flickr.com/photos/61377404@N08/27649238241/in/datepos...

 

DSC-1203

 

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 south of the Thames in the London suburb of Battersea. It is Wednesday, and it is Edith’s half day off. Usually, she spends it with her best friend and fellow maid-of-all-work, Hilda, who lives just around the corner from Cavendish Mews in Hill Street, where she works for Lettice’s married friends, Margot and Dickie Channon. Edith and Hilda frequently spend Wednesday afternoons together, pleasurably buying haberdashery, window shopping or taking tea. Yet today Frank Leadbetter, Edith’s fiancée, who works as the delivery boy for Mr. Willison’s Grocer’s in Binney Street Mayfair, has managed to get the Wednesday afternoon off, and has asked Edith to join him at the same place where not so long ago, he proposed marriage to her. Frank had arranged a special surprise for Edith, and it is here in Clapham Junction where Frank has joined Edith after meeting her Clapham Junction Railway Station*. Frank lives not too far from busy Clapham Junction in a boarding house run by his grim landlady, Mrs. Chapman. Frank shares Mrs. Chapman’s boarding house with a number of other single young men, including one of his best chums, John Simpkin, who is the assistant to Mr. Bristol who runs a photography studio in Clapham Junction. John has recently finished his apprenticeship to Mr. Bristol, and is now a photographer in his own right, and thus allowed to run the studio on his own on some days. So it was that he and Frank hatched a plan together to surprise Edith with a portrait photography session of she and Frank, managed by John, during which Frank finally proposed to Edith, slipping a fine silver band bought from a jewellers along Lavender Hill** onto her ring finger as a sign of promise.

 

It is at Mr. Bristol’s photographic studio that we find Edith and Frank, in the waiting area in the shop front of the studio. They have come to collect the photographs taken on the day of the momentous occasion of Frank’s proposal, developed by John. Edith glances around her at the fusty studio, which is still decorated in the more formal and overstuffed Edwardian style that was fashionable before the war. The white venetian blinds and heavy moss green curtains with their round bobbles help to muffle the constant sound of passing shoppers and motorcar traffic from outside. The walls are papered with green hangings featuring bunches of flowers divided by garlands of ribbons. Framed portraits of imperious middle-class matrons, proud shopkeepers and their families hang around the walls in gold and silver frames: some oval, others square, many plain, but a few quite ornate. The room’s floor is dominated by a large glass fronted display cabinet full of formal portrait carte de visites*** and displays of Kodak Box Brownies**** on top of which stands a gleaming glass cash register. It is before the counter that Edith and Frank stand.

 

“I’d never have believed it, Frank.” Edith muses as she rolls on the balls of her feet inside her smart black leather low louis heeled shoes.

 

“Believed that you’d one day be Mrs. Frank Leadbetter?” Frank asks with a good-natured chuckle.

 

“Well, I did have my doubts about that for a little while too.” Edith admits, remembering her bolstered feelings of optimism after she visited Madame Fortuna, a “discreet clairvoyant”- really Mrs. Fenchurch, an old widow who lives in Strathray Gardens in Swiss Cottage***** - with whom she corresponded with via Box Z 1245, The Times, E.C.4. “But no, I meant, I’d never have believed that I’d have my portrait taken. Although,” she adds, pointing to a sepia photo of a rather dour looking young woman with her hair pinned into a chignon****** like Edith, wearing a dainty white lace collar. “I hope I don’t look as sad as her.

 

Frank peers at the portrait behind the counter she points to. “Oh no, Edith!” Frank scoffs. “That’s an old photo, taken by Mr, Bristol the owner, I’m sure. John says he’s a nice chap, and lovely and friendly, but he’s very Victorian. He wouldn’t have had you and I so relaxed and comfortable for our photos as John did.”

 

A smile teases up the corners of Edith’s lips as she remembers how Frank’s friend harnessed the young couple’s happiness and energy, encouraging them as they stood and sat in various poses to smile and feel at ease with one another, as though he weren’t even there taking their photograph. Whilst Edith couldn’t ignore that fact, she hopes that some of the happiness and delight that she felt that day after Frank’s sudden and unexpected proposal right before John took their first photograph shines through in the resulting images they are now waiting on.

 

“It was rather jolly fun, I have to say.” Edith admits with a coy smile. “Like I said, I never imagined I’d have a proper professional photograph taken of me when I’m still so young. Mum and Dad saved for ages to have our portrait as a family taken at the photographic studio in Harlesden. I imagined it would be just the same for us.”

 

“Never!” Frank beams, wrapping his arm familiarly around his fiancée, and pulling her closer to him. “You’re my best girl!”

 

“Your only girl, I should hope!” Edith retorts with a cheeky smile.

 

Ignoring her teasing, Frank goes on. “I want to be able to look back in years to come and remember the beautiful young girl I proposed to, before she became the beautiful bride I married.”

 

“Oh Frank!” Edith gasps. “You are sweet.”

 

Her blue eyes sparkle as she stares into Frank’s face. He lowers his face to hers and kisses her softly on the lips, the moment gentle and intimate for them both.

 

Breaking their romantic kiss, Frank goes on, “Besides, I want photographic proof of the best day of my life so far!”

 

Edith giggles girlishly, giddy with joy. “Well so do I, Frank. So let’s hope that at least some of the shots Mr. Simpkin took are ones we like.”

 

“Trust me Edith.” Frank replies, tapping his nose knowingly. “John learned so much under the apprenticeship of Mr. Bristol, and he has an eye for capturing the beauty and emotion in people.”

 

“How do you know, Frank?”

 

“Well, sometimes John brings home photographs he has developed here that he took either at the studio, or candid shots he took out on the street with his Box Brownie.” Frank sighs with admiration. “Those are his best. The old flower sellers******* at the top of Tottenham Court Road, young couples out for a picnic or a stroll on Hampstead Heath******** or Primrose Hill********* housewives traipsing the terrace house lined streets around here, Elsie the barmaid, pulling pints at The Windsor Castle**********, just down the road.” He shakes his head in awe. “Now those are photographs that capture the essence of people, much more than a studio like this ever could, but that’s because they are candid shots of people just going about their everyday lives.”

 

“They sound amazing, Frank, and beautiful.”

 

“John is ever so talented! One of the most moving photographs of his I have ever seen was of a n old woman in full mourning by a grave in Highgate Cemetery***********. There she was, in full Victorian mourning clothes, with a look on her face that I really can’t describe. Melancholic, wistful, pained – all those things and more.”

 

“And she let Mr. Simpkin take the photograph of her?”

 

“Well, I don’t think so, Edith. John likes to capture candid moments with his own photographs, rather than staged ones, and he’s very discreet, so I doubt she would have even have been aware of his presence nearby.”

 

Edith gasps. “That’s a bit brazen of him, Frank! Mourning is a deeply personal thing.” She shakes her head in disapproval. “I don’t think I’d much like someone taking my photograph when I visit my Grandpop’s************ grave at Paddington Cemetery*************.”

 

“Well, you might change your mind if you see John’s photo, Edith. It’s not ghoulish or macabre. It is simply an observation of human grief.”

 

“Well, there is plenty of evidence of human misery around us, Frank.” Edith retorts. “Just visit Stepney or Poplar, where Mrs. Boothby lives, and you’d see the poor families crowded into one room, living in filth and squalor, children with rickets************** and hungry eyes. Miss Lettice is decorating the house of the MP for Mrs. Boothby’s constituency***************. I like Mrs. Hatchett because she isn’t snooty, and toffee nosed**************** like some of Miss Lettice’s clients when I am forced to answer that infernal telephone contraption of hers and take messages for her. However, I don’t understand how she can spend goodness knows how much money on having Miss Lettice redecorate her new London home, when Mr. Hatchett is supposed to be taking care of some of the poorest people in London. That money could buy a great many boots for the poor.”

 

“I admire your spirit and interest in the poor working man, Edith.” Frank says proudly. “It seems some of my ideas are rubbing off on you.”

 

“Well for goodness sake, don’t tell Mum, or she’ll have me break off our engagement.”

 

“But,” Frank goes on. “Politics isn’t quite that simple, and I doubt very much whether all of the money Mr. Charlie Hatchett, self-proclaimed ‘man of the people’ earned through banking and finance, would fix the inequality in Stepney.”

 

“Well, it might help a bit if he donated some.” Edith replies defiantly, folding her arms akimbo.

 

“Perhaps.” Frank says with a gentle smile, his eye sparkling. “Anyway, my friends at the London Trades Council***************** say, that with workers being forced to do longer hours for less pay than they are entitled to, the politicians may have to sit up and take notice of the working man and his rights soon.”

 

“What are you talking about Frank?” Edith exclaims. Looking earnestly at her fiancée she goes on, “You aren’t going to get into any kind of trouble, are you?”

 

“Now you’re starting to sound like your mum, Edith.”

 

“Well, are you, Frank?”

 

“Of course not, Edith!” Frank assures her.

 

“Good!” Edith breathes a sigh of relief. “Because now that we are affianced, I should hate for anything to happen to you.”

 

“I promise, Edith,” Frank says, pulling her close to him again. “Nothing is going to happen to me. I won’t put myself in harm’s way, when I have you to come home to.”

 

“Oh Frank!”

 

There moment is broken by as Frank’s friend, John the photographer, walks in from the photography studio behind and into the shop front where Edith and Frank wait. “Frank, Miss Watsford,” he says, bowing towards Edith slightly . “I have your photographs here.” He pushes a buff coloured Kodak Film Wallet across the glass counter towards the young pair.

 

“I’ve just been hearing from my fiancée, what a fine photographer you are Mr. Simpkin.” Edith says.

 

“Well, I hope you will like your photographs, Miss Watsford,” John says. “And if Frank will allow me, I’d like to offer this set complimentary to you both as a form of engagement gift.”

 

“Oh, John!” Frank exclaims. “I say, that’s awfully generous of you!”

 

“Oh Mr. Simpkin!” Edith adds. “That’s far too generous.”

 

“Nonsense Miss Watsford.” John assures her. “Look around you! I work in a photography studio.”

 

“Won’t Mr. Bristol, the owner, mind?” Edith persists.

 

“He won’t miss a few sheets of photographic paper and some chemicals for processing that we will already use for other projects. He lats me process my own Box Brownie photographs without charge after all.”

 

“Well then, thank you, Mr. Simpkin.” Edith acquiesces. “That really is most generous of you.”

 

“I say Miss Watsford,” John goes on as Edith slips her hand into the wallet to retrieve the photographs.

 

“Yes, Mr. Simpkin?” Edith pauses and looks up at him with querying eyes.

 

“If I’m to be Frank’s best man, as he has asked me to be, I really think we can probably go on less formal terms. I’d appreciate you calling me John.”

 

“Well then, you Must call me Edith, Mr. Simp… err, I mean… John.” Edith laughs.

 

The couple return their attention to the photographs, admiring how much of their happiness the young photographer has caught of them, and their comfort with one another, in spite of the formality. Edith points to her face in one shot as she looks lovingly into Frank’s eyes. Frank indicates to another where the pair have their heads together and arms about one another in a loving embrace as they look at the camera.

 

“But I hope you’ll pardon me for saying this, Frank and Edith, but my favourite photograph I took of the two of you isn’t included.”

 

“Really Mr. err… John?” Edith queries.

 

“Why ever not, John? I’ve been telling Edith what a good eye you have, especially for candid photographs.”

 

“Well, it’s because it is so candid. I’m not sure you will like it.” John begins. “But, I have it here, and if you like it enough, you are welcome to it as well.”

 

The young man withdraws one final photograph from where it lay hidden behind the gleaming cash register. Edith and Frank look down upon the picture taken of them, just as Frank slipped the thin silver band onto Edith’s ring finger, with both of them looking at it like it were a newborn baby, a look of blissful happiness and extreme pleasure on both their faces.

 

“Oh John!” Edith exclaims, raising her hand to her mouth. “This is beautiful! I love it!” She considers the image a little longer. “In fact, I’d say that it’s my favourite photograph of all!”

 

“It’s mine too, John old chap!” Frank agrees. “I said I wanted photographic proof of the moment I asked you to marry me, didn’t I Edith?”

 

“You did, Frank.”

 

“And here it is,” Frank says with a sweeping gesture and a beaming smile. “The very shot I shall one day have pleasure showing our children and grandchildren as I tell them how I proposed to you in Mr. Bristol’s Photography Studio before my best man, who took the photograph as I did.”

 

*Clapham Junction is a major railway station near St John's Hill in south-west Battersea in the London Borough of Wandsworth. Despite its name, Clapham Junction is not in Clapham, a district one mile to the south-east. A major transport hub, Clapham Junction station is on both the South West Main Line and Brighton Main Line, as well as numerous other routes and branch lines which pass through or diverge from the main lines at this station. It serves as a southern terminus of both the Mildmay and Windrush lines of the London Overground.

 

**Lavender Hill is a bustling high street serving residents of Clapham Junction, Battersea and beyond. Until the mid Nineteenth Century, Battersea was predominantly a rural area with lavender and asparagus crops cultivated in local market gardens. Hence, it’s widely thought that Lavender Hill was named after Lavender Hall, built in the late Eighteenth Century, where lavender grew on the north side of the hill.

 

***The carte de visite (which translates from the French as 'visiting card') was a format of small photograph which was patented in Paris by photographer André Adolphe Eugène Disdéri in 1854, although first used by Louis Dodero in 1851.

 

****The Brownie (or Box Brownie) was invented by Frank A. Brownell for the Eastman Kodak Company. Named after the Brownie characters popularised by the Canadian writer Palmer Cox, the camera was initially aimed at children. More than 150,000 Brownie cameras were shipped in the first year of production, and cost a mere five shillings in the United Kingdom. An improved model, called No. 2 Brownie, came in 1901, which produced larger photos, and was also a huge success. Initially marketed to children, with Kodak using them to popularise photography, it achieved broader appeal as people realised that, although very simple in design and operation, the Brownie could produce very good results under the right conditions. One of their most famous users at the time was the then Princess of Wales, later Queen Alexandra, who was an avid amateur photographer and helped to make the Box Brownie even more popular with the British public from all walks of life. As they were ubiquitous, many iconic shots were taken on Brownies. Jesuit priest Father Frank Browne sailed aboard the RMS Titanic between Southampton and Queenstown, taking many photographs of the ship’s interiors, passengers and crew with his Box Brownie. On the 15th of April 1912, Bernice Palmer used a Kodak Brownie 2A, Model A to photograph the iceberg that sank RMS Titanic as well as survivors hauled aboard RMS Carpathia, the ship on which Palmer was travelling. They were also taken to war by soldiers but by World War I the more compact Vest Pocket Kodak Camera as well as Kodak's Autographic Camera were the most frequently used. Another group of people that became posthumously known for their huge photo archive is the Nicholas II of Russia family, especially its four daughters who all used Box Brownie cameras.

 

*****According to the Dictionary of London Place Names, the district of Swiss Cottage is named after an inn called The Swiss Tavern that was built in 1804 in the style of a Swiss chalet on the site of a former tollgate keeper's cottage, and later renamed Swiss Inn and in the early 20th century Swiss Cottage.

 

******A chignon is a classic, versatile hairstyle characterized by a low bun or knot of hair, typically worn at the nape of the neck, though it can also be a more general term for hair wrapped at the back of the head. The name "chignon" comes from the French phrase "chignon du cou," meaning "nape of the neck," where the hairstyle is traditionally positioned. This elegant and refined style has been around for centuries.

 

*******Women and children selling flowers at the top of Tottenham Court Road were a common sight in pre-Second World War London. Mostly women and children, they did it primarily to earn money due to extreme poverty, often selling small bunches of cut flowers or nosegays to passersby for small amounts like a few pennies or a farthing. These street flower sellers, many of whom were young, lived in isolation or worked to support their families. The term "flower girl" became a popular name for these sellers, though some night sellers developed a reputation for also working as prostitutes and were known as “night flower girls”.

 

********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.

 

*********Like Regent's Park, the park area of Primrose Hill was once part of a great chase, appropriated by Henry VIII. Primrose Hill, with its clear rounded skyline, was purchased from Eton College in 1841 to extend the parkland available to the poor people of north London for open air recreation. At one time Primrose Hill was a place where duels were fought and prize-fights took place. The hill has always had a somewhat lively reputation, with Mother Shipton making threatening prophesies about what would happen if the city sprawl was allowed to encroach on its boundaries. At the top of the hill is one of the six protected viewpoints in London. The summit is almost sixty-three metres above sea level and the trees are kept low so as not to obscure the view. In winter, Hampstead can be seen to the north east. The summit features a York stone edging with a William Blake inscription, it reads: “I have conversed with the spiritual sun. I saw him on Primrose Hill.”

 

**********The Junction pub in Clapham Junction is a Green King-owned establishment that was formerly known as the Windsor Castle. It is a notable example of a "brewers' Tudor" pub built in the 1920s, with an interior of local historic interest. It has panelled walls and hefty, rustically treated timbers to the roof trusses - no doubt concealing very un-Tudor steel beams. Much use is made of imitation adzed tooling on the timbers to enhance the “ye olde world” effect. The pub recently closed for a refurbishment, which was completed in January 2024, resulting in a modernized space with updated furnishings and decor while retaining its classic 1920s pub feel.

 

***********Highgate Cemetery was established in 1839 as one of London's "Magnificent Seven" garden cemeteries to address overcrowding in churchyards. Highgate was built in response to a public health crisis caused by unsanitary churchyards in central London, a problem exacerbated by a rapidly growing population. The cemetery quickly became a popular and fashionable place for burials, reflecting the Victorian fascination with death and nature. Designed by Stephen Geary and landscape architect David Ramsay, it features a romantic, landscaped setting with winding paths, abundant trees, and impressive structures like the Egyptian Avenue, catacombs, and mausoleums. Elaborate monuments and tombs showcased the social status of wealthy families, creating what was known as a "Victorian Valhalla". Many famous and prominent Victorians are buried there.

 

************Whilst we tend to associate the term "grandpop" as being quite modern, it actually first appeared in the 1860s, with the earliest known usage recorded in 1860 by A. B. Street. It is an informal, compounded word, formed by combining the prefix "grand-" with "pop," a childish or familiar term for father.

 

*************Opened in 1855 to address the dire overpopulation of churchyards within London, which suffered from unsanitary conditions and scandalous practices, Paddington Cemetery (also known as Paddington Old Cemetery or Willesden Lane Cemetery), is a historic Victorian-era cemetery in Kilburn in North London. In 1855 Paddington Burial Board purchased 24 acres of rural land in Willesden. Cemetery designer Thomas Little created a horse-shoe tree-lined path layout. On each side of the entrance he built lodges and in the centre, two Gothic-style chapels, one Anglican and one Nonconformist. Its original formation was in a rural landscape which later became a green open space. There is a war memorial by the western entrance. There are over two hundred graves for casualties of World War I and World War II. The Goetze Memorial (c. 1911), erected by artist and philanthropist Sigismund Goetze in memory of his parents, and Michael Bond the British author best known for his Paddington Bear books is also appropriately buried there. By 1923 the cemetery was rapidly becoming filled, and the Metropolitan Borough of Paddington decided to acquire new land for a cemetery further out of London. This was opened as "Paddington New Cemetery" (now known as Mill Hill Cemetery) in 1936, leading to the site on Willesden Lane becoming known by its current name of "Paddington Old Cemetery". However in 1925, when this story is set, Paddington Old Cemetery was still the only cemetery with that name, thus Edith referring to it simply as “Paddington Cemetery”.

 

**************Rickets is a bone disease in children and teenagers that causes bones to become soft, weak, and deformed. It is primarily caused by a deficiency in vitamin D, which prevents the body from absorbing enough calcium and phosphate to form strong bones. Symptoms include bowed legs, muscle weakness, bone pain, delayed growth, and soft skull bones. Rickets is preventable with adequate vitamin D and calcium intake, plus some sun exposure, and can usually be treated with dietary supplements and lifestyle changes. These would not have been afforded to the poorest people of London’s East End back in the 1920s, although there were changes afoot to start to improve the living conditions of the poor.

 

***************The London constituency of Tower Hamlets includes such areas and historic towns as (roughly from west to east) Spitalfields, Whitechapel, Bethnal Green, Wapping, Shadwell, Mile End, Stepney, Limehouse, Old Ford, Bow, Bromley, Poplar, and the Isle of Dogs (with Millwall, the West India Docks, and Cubitt Town), making it a majority working class constituency in 1925 when this story is set. Tower Hamlets included some of the worst slums and societal issues of inequality and poverty in England at that time.

 

****************Toffee-nosed is a term used to people who are considered to be snobbish or pretentiously superior, going about with their noses stuck up in the air.

 

*****************The London Trades Council was an early labour organisation, uniting London's trade unionists. Its modern successor organisation is the Greater London Association of Trades (Union) Councils

  

This cluttered photography studio shop front, filled with photographic portraits, may look real to you, but it is not all it seems. It is in fact, made up entirely of pieces from my 1:12 miniatures collection.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The photos seen on the counter in the foreground – the one of Edith and Frank, and the ones in frames are real photos, produced to high standards in 1:12 size on photographic paper, made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. There are more examples of their photographs affixed to the wall in the background. The only exceptions are the round ones in black or gold frames, which come from Kathleen Knight’s Doll’s House Shop. The range or ornate square frames you can see in the background are almost all from Melody Jane’s Dollhouse Suppliers in the United Kingdom and are made of metal with glass in each.

 

The Art Deco picture frame in blue Bakelite on the right of the photo comes from Doreen Jeffries Small Wonders Miniatures store in the United Kingdom. The silver Art Nouveau frame containing the photo of the wedding party is a 1:12 artisan miniature made by Pat’s Miniatures in the United Kingdom. The frame is a very thin slice of steel that has been laser cut with the intricate Art Nouveau design.

 

The Kodak photograph wallets and advertising are 1:12 size miniatures made by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. Ken Blythe is known for his miniature books. Most of the books crated by him that I own may be opened to reveal authentic printed interiors. In some cases, you can even read the words, depending upon the size of the print! I have quite a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my collection. What might amaze you even more is that all Ken Blythe’s opening books are authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. Not only did Ken Blythe create books, he also created other 1:12 miniatures with paper and that includes photographs and photographic paraphernalia such as photograph wallets. To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make these miniature artisan pieces. Ken Blythe’s work is highly sought after by miniaturists around the world today and command high prices at auction for such tiny pieces, particularly now that he is no longer alive. I was fortunate enough to acquire pieces from Ken Blythe prior to his death about four years ago, 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.

 

Edith’s handbag handmade from soft leather is part of a larger collection of hats and bags that I bought from an American miniature collector Marilyn Bickel. The black umbrella came from an online stockist of 1:12 miniatures on E-Bay.

 

The shiny metal cash register comes from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in the United Kingdom.

 

The black umbrella came from an online stockist of 1:12 miniatures on E-Bay.

 

The wallpaper is late Victorian in design and was sourced and printed by me.

This is a supplemental to my "Origin of the States" narrative, the first supplemental since Independence but the fourth overall. ... we'll call it part 34.3 of 50 in a sporadic series.

 

Consider this a prologue.

 

The admission of Kansas into the Union on January 29, 1861, brings us to a pivotal moment in this train of accumulating states. Five weeks later, the nation inaugurated a lanky lawyer from Illinois named Abraham Lincoln as its 16th President. A month after that, a rebel militia in South Carolina fired on American soldiers at a fort in Charleston harbor. Overnight, the number of United States dropped by eleven, and the Confederate States of America was born. The Civil War was on.

 

Ask anybody to name the cause of the Civil War, and you'll likely get one of two answers, depending on where the person you ask grew up. If you're quizzing somebody from the South or from some rural part of various states in the West or Midwest, they'll likely say it was a dispute over "state's rights." Anybody else -- probably the majority, though it's hard to say these days -- will say it was slavery. The truth of it is deeply complicated and denies simple answers, and we as a nation are still fighting over those answers even a century and a half later.

 

But I'm going to give my own shot at answering the questions anyway. The next two installments of the "Origin of States" series will examine what I see as the two primary factors that lead to the war, followed by a look at the birth of a state that only exists because of it. Finally, we'll cap this arc with a look at what happened during the war and why, and then what happened afterward.

 

And we'll start now by examining the origin of the biggest motivation for Civil War of them all, which I sum up in that picture of an Arkansas cotton field above and what John Calhoun, the famous senator from South Carolina, called "the peculiar institution" of slavery.

 

The Conquest

 

The concept of "slavery" has been part of what we typically think of as Western culture as long as Western culture has been a thing, though it's meant different things at different times to different collections of people. Ancient Greeks had slaves. Ancient Romans had slaves. People had slaves in the Bible. A significant portion of Judeo-Christian tradition holds that the Israelites were all slaves of Egypt until God had Moses lead them all across a suddenly dry patch of Red Sea.

 

The roots of the Atlantic slave trade that gave us the American form of slavery trace back to the Iberian Peninsula and the period known in Spanish history as the Reconquista. This was a centuries-long series of invasions and counter-invasions that ended around 1400 AD, when European Christians moved across the Pyrenees and pushed Islamic migrants known as Moors off the peninsula and back into Africa. These Christian groups set up various little kingdoms as they went, places like Aragon or Castile or Galicia, and one way the noble classes of these little kingdoms displayed their wealth was by taking captive Muslims as slaves. So in the beginning, Western-style slavery wasn't based on race. It was based on religion.

 

The end of the Reconquista had two consequences important to our story. One, over the course of the 15th century, the little Iberian kingdoms reorganized themselves into two distinct entities: Portugal and a collection of everybody else that would eventually call itself Spain. Two, the Portuguese and Spanish suddenly had the money and time they needed to kick off the Age of Exploration. Portugal soon started poking their way down the west coast of Africa, and by 1450 or so, they made contact with a number of African kingdoms that were open to trading things like sugar or spices or textiles. Or, in some cases, fellow Africans they'd captured in war and taken as slaves. Which was convenient, because with all the Moorish Muslims kicked off Iberia, the Portuguese had no handy source for slaves of their own. And so, the Portuguese slave trade was born.

 

Meanwhile, the Spanish kingdoms focused their attention west across the Atlantic, and in 1492, a couple of Spanish monarchs hired an Italian to go bumble into the Caribbean Islands. Two years later, the Spaniards used this find to talk the Portuguese into signing the Treaty of Tordesillas, which guaranteed the Portuguese exclusive rights to the African trade in exchange for exclusive Spanish rights to everything a certain distance west of the Cape Verde Islands. This translated to pretty much the entire New World except Brazil, though it was a while before anybody realized that.

 

The Spanish found lots of silver and gold in the New World, and they initially forced the indigenous American population into slavery to go digging for it all. But the indigenous Americans had no resistance to the European diseases the Spanish carried, and within a very few years, about 90% of the Americans died. But a Spanish conquistador isn't going to do all that digging himself, so the Spanish turned to the Portuguese. They traded their American silver for African slaves, and the Atlantic slave trade was born.

 

Over the next three centuries, about 10 million Africans would be kidnapped and stuffed onto ships bound for the Americas. Most of them would wind up in South America or in the Caribbean, where they'd work as miners or farmhands on sugar plantations. Somewhere around 500,000 of them would end up in mainland North America, forced to work in a bunch of colonies that would someday be states.

 

Indendured Servitude

 

Some time in 1619, Portuguese colonial forces captured about 300 native Africans from the Kongo and Ndongo kingdoms, marched them to Luanda, and forced them to board a slave ship called the San Juan Bautista. Near the end of its voyage, the Bautista was attacked by two ships full of British "privateers," which is a fancy name for pirates operating with the permission of the King. These privateers seized the Bautista's cargo, including the hundred or so slaves who had survived the crossing, and went looking for someplace to unload their plunder. On August 20, 1619, one of these privateer ships called the White Lion stopped at Point Comfort near the decade-old Jamestown Colony and traded about 20 Africans to the Virginia colonists for food. Those 20 Africans signified the beginning of African slavery in what would become the United States.

 

Some historians like to say that from a technical standpoint, those first Africans in Jamestown weren't really "slaves" so much as they were "indentured servants," which basically means "slave with an expiration date." Indentured servitude was a big thing in Virginia and the other early colonies, and was usually defined as a process where a wealthy person paid the cost of a ticket to America for somebody downtrodden in exchange for a term of slave-like service, usually about seven years. After the term of service was up, the indentured servant would be freed. This wasn't yet a race-based system; most indentured servants in the British colonies were also British. But this left open a window to define indentured servants from Africa as something else.

 

History didn't track what happened to all the 20-someodd Jamestown slaves/servants from the White Lion, but it's known that at least some of them did eventually get their freedom. But it didn't take long for the colonists to realize that things didn't have to go that way. Buying a person is a lot more economical when you get to keep that person for life, and the 17th-century version of morality isn't really a concern if that person you bought is just some African captive.

 

The colonies soon started building the legal framework that legitimized a slave empire. In 1640, a Virginia judge sentenced an indentured servant from Africa to a lifetime of slavery for rowdiness. In 1641, the colonial Massachusetts General Court adopted the Body of Liberties, a legal code that outlined the rights guaranteed to individual colonists, including the right to own slaves. Rhode Island merchants started importing and selling slaves in the 1650s, and one of the largest slave markets ever to operate in North America took shape in Providence. In 1662, a court in Virginia ruled that a child born to an enslaved mother was the property of the mother's owner, establishing the notion that enslavement was a hereditary condition. The rest of the colonies soon followed suit, condemning at least ten generations to enslavement. More laws across the colonies firmly established the racial basis for American slavery, so that by the end of the 1600s, every American held in chains was a black person descended from Africans.

 

The Peculiar Institution

 

Slavery took hold in different ways in different parts of the colonies, and it took a while for things to settle into its final form. In the South, the Virginia tobacco planters took advantage of the free labor to offset their vast and everlasting tsunami of debt. The start of the 1700s saw plantation culture take hold on the rice farms of South Carolina and the sugar plantations of French Louisiana. As the decades passed, the Southern economy became more and more dependent on slavery, and Southerners grew more and more willing to overlook and explain away the lives slavery destroyed.

 

The situation was different in the North, where more rugged terrain and shorter growing seasons made slavery less economical. This gave northerners more financial freedom to start factoring the morality of slavery into their cost/benefit analysis. Northerners could afford to notice the scars whips left on their slaves' backs, as slavery allowed white men and women to abuse black men and women in ways so horrific that even the longest Flickr post couldn't capture it. (Thankfully, I don't have those kinds of pictures.) More and more people looked at slavery with revulsion.

 

By the 1750s, a few people in the north were suggesting that maybe there shouldn't be such a thing as slavery. The Pennsylvania Quakers went so far as to ban slavery among their followers in 1758. As the idea of "freedom" and "independence" took hold of the American psyche in the 1760s and 1770s, many people, especially in the north, grew convinced that all this new freedom should include the slaves. The new state of Pennsylvania outlawed slavery in 1780. New Hampshire and Massachusettes followed suit in 1783, and Rhode Island and Connecticut did the same a year later. New York finally got around to banning slavery in 1799, and Vermont never had legal slavery to begin with. And when in the years following the Revolution the newly United States looked across the Alleghenies at what it called the Northwest Territories, it decided that freedom for slaves should be the way of things there. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787, the only significant legislation to pass in the era of the Articles of Confederation, banned slavery north of the Ohio River and East of the Mississippi for all time.

 

The assumption among many of America's founding leaders was that even in the South, slavery was on an economic downswing anyway, and that within a generation or so, the problem would take care of itself. That's partly how a Virginia planter who owned about 200 slaves in 1776 could write a document that said, "all men are created equal" without a hint of irony. He assumed that the slave question would just fade away by the time he retired to Monticello.

 

Antebellum

 

Jefferson and the other founding leaders of the United States had good reason to believe slavery was in its final days when they declared independence in 1776 and ratified the Constitution in 1788. Four of the first five United States Presidents were Virginia planters, and the buckets of red ink in the personal accounting books of each of those four Presidents told them just where the plantation economy was headed. All four spent their lives hovering near bankruptcy, and three of the four had their estates sold off to cover their debts once they died. Tobacco markets were chaotic, and tobacco was a labor intensive plant that quickly killed the soil where it grew. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and a host of other Southern planters knew this couldn't go on.

 

But then it did, and we explored the reasons why when we talked about Mississippi. The answer was in the picture above: cotton. Cotton wasn't a new thing, and the crop itself wasn't hard to grow -- at least, it was no harder to grow than tobacco. But processing the grown cotton was expensive, because the finished plant was full of seeds that had to be removed by hand. But then in 1794, Eli Whitney invented a machine that removed the seeds automatically, and overnight, a labor-intensive crop that had been impossible to sell suddenly found a market. Former tobacco and rice producers in South Carolina and Georgia turned their plantations over to cotton, while settlers moved into new southern territories like Alabama and Mississippi and Arkansas to build new plantations.

 

The demand for slaves suddenly skyrocketed. This was compounded when Congress enacted a ban on the importation of new African slaves into the United States in 1807. With the supply of slaves cut off, all these new cotton plantations turned to the dying tobacco plantations in states like North Carolina and Virginia and Tennessee. Tobacco plantations had been faced with the horror of freeing their slaves in a dying slave market and ... I don't know, maybe industrializing or something. Now, they could simply send their slaves down the river to markets in Natchez or New Orleans. In a sense, those old tobacco farms became livestock producers, only the livestock in question was human beings.

 

By the time settlers jumped the Mississippi River and started carving states from the Louisiana Territory like Missouri and Arkansas, it was apparent that slavery and the plantation economy wasn't going anywhere, maybe ever. The very notion of an end to slavery horrified the Southerners, who saw abolition as a threat to their way of life, and even possibly their very existence. Many, like South Carolina Senator John Calhoun, responded with specious arguments that slavery was justified in the Bible, that it was almost a Biblical commandment, that it was the burden of the white man to take care of his lowly inferiors. Slavery was a gift to the Africans, Calhoun said, something that allowed this once savage race to live civilized, Christian lives their forebears could never have imagined. Slavery wasn't an abomination. It was simply a "peculiar institution" that followed God's mandate to make the world a better place. Calhoun spent decades forcefully declaring that it would be a sin to allow some Union of Northern States to take away his own state's right to follow God's will. And if, perchance, the Union tried to take the right anyway? Well then it would be South Carolina's right to tell the Union to shove it.

 

But did South Carolina really have such a right? Was it the right of a state to tell the Union to shove it? Did a state have a right to secede? That's the question we'll explore next time.

Ich habe jetzt auch die Kette fertiggestellt.

I have now completed the chain.

NISSAN GT-R

 

Specifications

 

Engine

• VR-series twin-turbocharged 3.8-liter V6.

• 480 hp @ 6,800 rpm. 430 lb-ft torque @ 3,200–5,200 rpm.

• Dual overhead camshafts with variable intake-valve timing.

• Cast aluminum cylinder block with high-endurance/low-friction plasma-sprayed bores.

• IHI twin turbochargers, one per cylinder bank.

• Pressurized lubrication system with thermostatically controlled cooling.

 

Drivetrain

• ATTESA ET-S All-Wheel Drive (AWD) with independent rear-mounted transaxle integrating transmission, differential and AWD transfer case.

• Rigid, lightweight carbon-composite driveshaft between engine and transaxle.

• Electronic traction control plus 1.5-way mechanically locking rear differential.

• Vehicle Dynamics Control (VDC-R) with three driver-selectable settings: Normal (for daily driving, controls brakes and engine output), R-Mode (for ultimate performance, utilizes AWD torque distribution for additional vehicle stability) and Off (driver does not want the help of the system).

• Hill Start Assist prevents rollback when starting on an incline.

DisclaimerVDC-R cannot prevent accidents due to abrupt steering, carelessness, or dangerous driving techniques. Always drive safely.

 

Transmission

• 6-speed Dual Clutch Transmission with three driver-selectable modes: Normal (for maximum smoothness and efficiency), Snow (for gentler starting and shifting on slippery surfaces), and R mode (for maximum performance with fastest shifts).

• Fully automatic shifting or full sequential manual control via gearshift or steering wheel-mounted paddle shifters.

• Dual clutch design changes gears in less than 0.5 second (0.2 second in R mode).

• Downshift Rev Matching (DRM).

• Predictive pre-shift control (in R mode) based on throttle position, vehicle speed, braking and other information.

 

Wheels and Tires

• 20 x 9.5" (front) and 20 x 10.5" (rear) super-lightweight forged-aluminum wheels with Gunmetal Gray finish.

• Exclusively developed nitrogen-filled Bridgestone® RE070A high-capacity run-flat summer tires, 255/40R20 front and 285/35R20 rear.

• Tire Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS).

• Optional exclusively developed nitrogen-filled Dunlop® run-flat all-season tires, 255/40R20 front and 285/35R20 rear (includes Bright Silver wheels).

 

Brakes

• Brembo® 4-wheel disc brakes with 4-wheel Antilock Braking System (ABS), Brake Assist, Electronic Brakeforce Distribution and Preview Braking.

• Two-piece floating-rotor 15-inch front and rear discs with diamond-pattern internal ventilation.

• 6-piston front/4-piston rear monoblock calipers.

 

Steering

• Rack-and-pinion steering with vehicle-speed-sensitive power assist.

• 2.6 steering-wheel turns lock-to-lock.

 

Suspension

• 4-wheel independent suspension with Bilstein® DampTronic system with three driver-selectable modes: Normal/Sport (for automatic electronic control of damping), Comfort (for maximum ride comfort), and R mode (engages maximum damping rate for high-performance cornering).

• Electronically controlled variable-rate shock absorbers. High-accuracy progressive-rate coil springs.

• Front double-wishbone/rear multi-link configuration with aluminum members and rigid aluminum subframes.

• Hollow front and rear stabilizer bars.

 

Body/Chassis

• Exclusive Premium Midship platform with jig-welded hybrid unibody.

• Aluminum hood, trunk and door skins. Die-cast aluminum door structures.

• Carbon-reinforced front crossmember/radiator support.

Back to Top

 

Standard Features

 

Exterior

• Wide-beam headlights with High Intensity Discharge (HID) low beams.

• LED taillights and brake lights.

• Dual heated power mirrors.

• Flush-mounted aluminum door handles.

• Body-color rear spoiler with integrated center high-mounted stop light.

• UV-reducing tinted glass.

 

Audio/Navigation/Performance Monitor

• Digital Bose® audio system with AM/FM/in-dash 6-CD changer and 11 speakers including dual subwoofers.

• HDD Music Box system, including hard drive with 9.4 GB for audio storage.

• MP3, WMA and DVD audio capable. In-dash Compact Flash card reader.

• HDD-based GPS navigation with touch screen.

• Driver-configurable performance monitor, developed with Sony® Polyphony, with graphical readouts of vehicle data and driving data displayed on a total of 11 screens.

• 7-inch WVGA high-resolution color-LCD display for audio, navigation and performance monitor.

 

Interior

• Automatic Temperature Control (ATC).

• Electronic analog instrument cluster with multi-function trip computer and digital gear indicator.

• Power front windows with one-touch auto-up/down feature.

• Intelligent Key system with pushbutton start. Power door locks.

• Cruise control.

• Tilt/telescoping steering column.

• Bluetooth® Hands-free phone system with voice recognition.

 

Seating/Appointments

• Leather upholstered front seats with perforated Alcantara inserts.

• 8-way power front seats with entry/exit switch for rear-seat passengers.

• Driver-shaped bucket seat.

• Dual individual rear seats.

• Heated front seats.

• Leather-wrapped steering wheel and shift knob.

• Drilled aluminum pedals.

 

Safety/Security

• Nissan Advanced Air Bag System (AABS) with dual-stage supplemental front air bags, seat belt sensors and occupant-classification sensor.

• Driver and front-passenger side-impact supplemental air bags and roof-mounted curtain supplemental air bags.

• Front seat belts with pretensioners and load limiters.

• Nissan Vehicle Immobilizer System.

• Vehicle Security System.