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The Forth Bridge was opened in 1890, having been 8 years in the construction. It was started in the knowledge that, given the poor safety standards of the time, men would die in the process. At its peak, approximately 4,600 workers were employed in the bridge's construction.
As of 2009 it was recorded that 73 men lost their lives in accidents. A memorial on shore records their names and occupations.
Two new bridges have since been constructed nearby: The Forth Road Bridge and The Queensferry Crossing.
For me, this original bridge is the most 'handsome' and characterful. We visited on a late autumn evening and stayed for sunset. The gathering dusk gave a sombre and reflective mood.
There are many plantation workers on the cameron highlands, most arriving from overseas, mainly from places like nepal. Working the plantations can be risky, with snake bites a major concern.
A worker carries baskets of salt on her bamboo pole at sunrise. The Hon Khoi Salt Fields in Nha Trang is one of the largest salt fields in central Vietnam. Sea water is pumped into these fields and allowed to evaporate leaving salt crystals behind. The men then rake and collect the salt into pyramidal heaps, while the women carry the salt to be processed on their bamboo poles.
From the lower slopes of Garbh Bheinn. The two most prominent peaks are Am Bodach left of centre and Na Gruagaichean at top right.
The large empty area at bottom centre is the site of the former aluminium works for whose workers Kinlochleven was built early in the 20th Century. The long narrow building alongside it is the hydroelectric power station that powered it and now supplies electricity to the grid; the water is piped from the Blackwater Dam 5 miles upstream.
Given it is the last stop before Fort William on the West Highland Way long distance walk, and its extremely scenic location, the village has been able to reinvent itself as a tourism hub since the plant closed in 2000 but has inevitably lost a substantial proportion of its resident community.
An old shot newly reprocessed, previously posted as part of a panorama.
✨ Bellart Worker man Animated 😻
This model is part of the Bellart collection of animated 3D models, featuring 200+ beautifully textured animals and realistic animations.
Created to bring a new level of life and immersion to Second Life — perfect for photography, animal lovers, landscaping, roleplay, or simply adding realistic companions to your virtual world. ✨
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When the Jungfernstieg subway station was built in 1932, construction workers came across several old driven piles that belonged to the Alstermühlendamm weir built in 1250, the forerunner of the later Jungfernstieg. Professor Richard Luksch, who at the time taught at the Hamburg School of Arts and Crafts (now the HFBK), designed one of the piles as a gift to the Hanseatic city to become the Jungfernsäule. Seven maidens, as symbols of the seven centuries that the pile had already endured at that time, decorate the column all around at different heights. The design of each young woman is based on a particular century, sometimes in medieval garb, sometimes modern.
PUTFORD WORKER
Great Yarmouth
IMO 7432094 - Built 1979
Offshore Supply ship - 65.53 m X 14.02m
&
PORTOSALVO
IMO: 9330977 - Built 2005
Offshore Supply ship - 71m X 16m
#1661
94
‘Sal de Tavira/Flor de Sal de Tavira’ are sea salts that have specific physical and chemical properties which differ from those of common salt. They are unrefined, unwashed and additive-free sea salts that give dishes a unique taste. They come from the salt pans located in the Ria Formosa National Park, Algarve.
That's a big mural by JAUNE in Vila Nova de Gaia. It's painted at a flight of stairs leading down to the harbour region.
⭐On Explore: August 24, 2022: THANK YOU so much everyone for your likes and comments; they are so appreciated!!😁
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today we are only a short distance north-east of Cavendish Mews, past the metropolis’ busiest shopping street, Oxford Street and Oxford Circus*, beyond Tottenham Court Road and a little north of the British Museum** in Taviton Street*** Bloomsbury. Edith, Lettice’s maid, is engaged to Frank Leadbetter, the local delivery boy for Mr. Willison’s Grocery in Binney Street, Mayfair, and it is he rather than Edith whom we are following today.
During the General Strike**** in May, when one point seven million workers paralysed transport, printing, and heavy industries temporarily, Frank wrote a column for the short-lived British Worker*****, a daily newspaper produced by the General Council of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) as their official mouthpiece during the 1926 General Strike. The column was called ‘Observations of a Shopkeeper’s Boy’, and it was so well written that the owners of the small Socialist monthly periodical, ‘Workers Awake’ showed interest in Frank’s work.
Thus, we find ourselves within the cluttered confines of what had once been the first floor drawing room of a three-storey Georgian townhouse overlooking the street. The room has been transformed into an office of sorts, and it is here that Frank has been taken to by a wiry young woman with a rather harried look on her face whom he ran in to when he walked through the open front door of the terrace and stepped into what is now the ground floor printer’s room of ‘Workers Awake’ where several letterpresses are printing leaflets with noisy whirrs and clunks.
“Pen, this is the delivery boy from Willison’s.” the girl announces in a clear voice over the constant racket coming from the presses running on the floor below, as she ushers Frank through the doorframe from the hallway outside.
Even in the first few minutes of his arrival, Frank already finds the home of ‘Worker’s Awake’ to be a somewhat peculiar place. Aside from the front door, the place seems to have no doors. The doors to each room he has seen so far have been removed, leaving only half the hinges for each, still affixed into the doorframes. He looks nervously around him. What must once have been a cosy drawing room is now a cluttered office. A rather miserly looking coal fire installed in an Art Nouveau surround – obviously a much later addition to the house’s once elegant interiors – belches out acrid smoke and coal soot, which only adds to the pungency of the air, which is filled with the heavy smells of grease and printers ink from that have wafted up from downstairs. Mismatched bookshelves and cupboards of differing sizes, woods, ages and styles jostle for space around the floral sprigged wallpapered walls. Each is filled with a jumble of books, shoved in apparently randomly. A rather fine desk sits drawn up close to the inadequate fire, which is made even more ineffectual by the lack of doors closing off the room, leaving it open to the cold late autumnal breeze that blows up the stairs. The desk itself has cabriole legs that are carved finely, suggesting that it is probably a piece of quality antique furniture, but Frank cannot tell anything else about it, for its surface is covered in a melee of messy piles of books, hand written notes, bills, ledger pages and old copies of ‘Workers Awake’. They cling tenaciously to the spaces they habituate and share with a rather large black typewriter and several dirty china cups and pottery mugs that must once have held tea or coffee. There is also a pervasive smell of cigarette smoke, which Frank can see comes from a small black Bakelite****** ashtray which already has several stubbed out buts in it, and the ashy remnants of a cigarette wedged into its lip which has been forgotten about and left to burn down to the filter.
“Willison’s?” the middle-aged woman sitting behind the desk in an uncomfortable looking old Victorian red velvet upholstered armchair queries with a scrunched up face.
This older woman, like the young one whom Frank met upon entering the premises, has a harried face, pinched with exhaustion. Nevertheless, it is noble, with high cheekbones and a Greek nose*******. The woman has greyish-blue eyes and grey hair which she has swept into a rather old fashioned pre-war Edwardian updo. Pencils, obviously wedged across the bridge of her ears, poke out through her hair. She wears a rather non-descript frock of a muddy shade of russet with a wide lace collar, also rather old-fashioned in war-era Edwardian style, and a sautoir of black jet beads hanging about her rather elegant neck.
“Willison’s the Grocer’s, over in Binney Street, Pen.” the younger woman elucidates, clutching a notepad she has been carrying the whole time to her chest.
“Willison’s?” the older woman questions again. Then, as if in possession of a revelation, she suddenly continues, looking in horror at the young girl, “Oh good heavens! Isn’t there any spare money in the kitty in the old tea cannister on the mantle in the kitchen, Doreen?” She leaps from her seat behind her desk, now focussing her attention on Frank. “I’m most frightfully sorry.”
“No, Pen… it’s…” Doreen, the younger girl stutters.
“Oh well never mind.” the older woman replies, as she begins to look around her in a flitting way, suddenly patting the piles of papers and books on the desktop. “My purse is around here somewhere. Let me see.” She chuckles awkwardly. “One can never lay one’s hands upon one’s purse when one needs it.”
The way she speaks tells Frank that this woman, however skittish she may be, is well educated, and probably upper-middle class, or more, which strikes him as odd for an employee of a Socialist newspaper.
“You haven’t seen it have you Doreen?” the woman asks, as she starts to look around the mantle of the fireplace. “You know what it looks like: black leather.”
“I’m afraid I haven’t seen it, Pen.” Doreen replies apologetically, glancing awkwardly at Frank and giving him a weak smile of apology.
“Oliver!” the older woman calls, her voice suddenly shrill. “Oliver!”
“Pen it’s not…” Doreen tries again.
“Purse… purse… purse… purse.” The other woman mutters half to herself as she looks around, lifting papers in the piles on her desk that she has already pattered. “I know it’s here.” Raising her voice she calls again over the noisy clatter of printing machinery, “Oliver!”
“Sorry.” Doreen apologises to Frank. “I’d say it’s not always like this, but that’d be a lie.” She shrugs. “It’s always chaotic around here.”
“It’s a wonder you can work in it.” Frank opines.
“Oh, it’s amazing what you get used to,” Doreen replies, smiling a little more broadly and blushing prettily as she does, her pale freckled skin blanching red. “And how quickly you learn to adapt.”
“Oliver!” the older woman yells again, now obviously frustrated with whoever this Oliver is.
She begins to search distractedly for her purse underneath the fronds of a potted fern in an ornate planter, likely a remnant of the furnishings when this used to be a drawing room.
“I’ll have to take your word for that, Miss?” Frank replies politely to Doreen.
“It’s Miss Wright,” she answers. “But as you’ll discover, if you don’t bolt out the door in the next few moments, everyone around here is on a first name basis. It’s part of our Socialist ethos. None of us is above the other.”
“Oliver where the devil are you?”
“I’m Doreen.” She extends her right hand to Frank, a delicate thing with little fingers devoid of rings with unvarnished naiks that she obviously chews from anxiety. “How do you do.”
“How do you do Miss… err… Doreen.” Frank replies, extending his own hand. “I’m Frank Leadbetter.”
“Oliver!” the older woman yells even more loudly.
“Yes I know,” Doreen replies with a nervous chuckle, blushing again. “You told me your name when you arrived downstairs.”
“Oliv….” the older woman half calls before ceasing as a rather short and portly older gentleman with a horseshoe hairline******** of snowy white hair and a bald pate, dressed in plus fours********* and an argyle jumper********** as if he is about to go golfing, steps across the threshold of the room next door through the empty doorframe devoid of a door. “There you are, Oliver.” she says with a sigh. “Why must you be so obtuse, and refuse to come when I call you?”
“Good heavens, Pen! What are you bellowing for me for?” Oliver asks, removing a pair of thick horn-rimmed glasses*********** off the bridge of his nose, pinching his bridge with pudgy fingers. “You know I’m busy rehearsing my speech for Speakers’ Corner************ on Sunday.” His mouth slackens and hangs open slightly, framed by red and fat cherubic lips as he waits for a reply.
“Oliver.” his companion replies peevishly as she folds her arms akimbo over her small chest. “I thought I told you to restock the kitty downstairs with a few shillings for Doreen or any of us to pay the tradesmen and delivery boys. We can’t claim to live by Socialist ideals, and not give them money for their efforts.”
“I did, Pen.” Oliver replies simply, restoring his glasses to the bridge of his nose. “I topped it up just yesterday with five shillings and ninepence. “ He shakes his head. “There should be plenty.”
“Really?” she replies in an unbelieving quip. “Then why is Mr. Willison’s delivery boy in our offices demanding payment for delivering our groceries?”
“No I… If I could…” Frank tries to interject, but is quickly shut out by Oliver.
“But we don’t use Willison’s, Pen.”
“What?” the older woman asks, now placing her hands on her hips as she shifts her weight from one foot to the other.
“We don’t use Willison’s, Pen.” Oliver repeats matter-of-factly. “Stuck up man that he is. After he sneered at me down his nose, I took out an account at that grocers on Marchmont street. They are much more agreeable.”
“Then who is this?” the woman asks, glancing in alarm between Oliver and Doreen.
“Well how should I know, Pen?” Oliver replies. “You’re the one who’s always picking up strays and waifs, not me.”
“Who is this young man, Doreen?” the older woman addresses the younger.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, Pen, if only you’d stop for a moment, and listen.” Doreen sighs.
“Well!” the older woman exclaims in horror. “I like that!”
“This is Frank Leadbetter,” Doreen goes on, ignoring the other woman’s sarcastic interjection. “The young delivery boy from Willison’s the Grocer’s who wrote those articles for the ‘British Worker’ during the General Strike.” She looks meaningfully at her. “You’d asked me to arrange a meeting with him when you were back from your speaking tour of the Welsh collieries. Remember?”
“Mr. Frank Leadbetter at your service, Miss.” Frank quickly snatches his workman’s cap************* from his head and holds out his right hand to the lady before him.
“Oh! Jolly good show!” Oliver beams happily. “How do you do, Frank!” He waddles over to Frank and shakes his hand warmly. “I’m Oliver Barnstaple and this is my sister Penelope. Welcome to ‘Workers Awake’!” He chortles as he releases Frank’s hand from a rather surprisingly vice like grip. “We have been very much looking forward to making your acquaintance. We are great admirers of your ‘Observations of a Shopkeeper’s Boy’ column that you wrote for the ‘British Worker’, aren’t we Pen?”
“How do you do, Mr. Barnstaple.” Frank replies, before turning to Penelope again. “Miss Barnstaple.”
“Oh goodness Frank! We’re a Socialist newspaper, not The Times!” Oliver chuckles, “You must call us Oliver and Penelope.”
“Most people around here call me, Pen, Frank.” Penelope replies in a low, apologetic tone. “How do you do.”
“Well, now that we have that sorted out, I’ll err…. leave you in Pen’s most capable hands.” Oliver replies. “Must press on, don’t you know. This speech won’t write itself. Pip-pip************** old chap. Doreen, won’t you join me? I need your editorial skills. I just want a second opinion on a few points.
“Yes. Of course, Oliver.” Doreen replies. “Well, goodbye then Frank.” She shakes Frank’s hand again, warmly. “It’s been lovely to meet you, and I do hope we’ll see you here again. I enjoyed your articles very much as well.” She smiles shyly. “You write with true passion for the working man. Keep it up”
“Goodness thank you Mi… Doreen.” Frank manages to stammer in surprise as Doreen and Oliver retreat though the doorless entrance into the adjoining office.
“Again, I’m so sorry about that mistake with your identity, Frank.” Penelope apologises with an earnestness once they are alone. “It’s not a proper excuse I know, but it’s hard trying to run a newspaper and a household as well.” she defends her actions. “My brother spends most of his time writing for the paper, you see.”
“And speeches.” Frank remarks with one of his most winning smiles in an effort to assure Penelope that she is forgiven.
“Yes, and speeches.” Penelope replies with a relieved sigh. Hurring around to Frank’s side of her desk, she quickly removes a pile of correspondence and pamphlets from another Victorian style armchair that matches her own, dumping the papers unceremoniously on the floor, and indicates to the chair. “Please, do take a seat, Frank.”
“Thanks ever so.” Frank replies gratefully as he sinks into the chair, which is, as he suspected, lumpy and hard with horsehair stuffing.
“Have you ever seen Oliver down at Speaker’s Corner on a Sunday, Frank?” Penelope asks, returning to her side of the desk and resuming her seat.
“Yes, I think I have, Miss Barnst….”
“Uh-uh!” Penelope wags a finger admonishingly at Frank. “It’s Pen, please Frank. Or Penelope if you prefer to be more formal. I’ll answer to both.” Then she gasps and leaps from her seat, startling Frank as she does. “I forgot to offer you refreshments. Would you like a tea or coffee, Frank? I’m sure I have a tin of Peek Freans*************** or some such here somewhere.” She begins patting the papers om her desk frantically again.
“Glancing again at the unwashed cups, which have obviously been cluttering Penelope’s desk’s surface for a while, some still containing the dried remnants of refreshments, Frank smiles politely and replies, “No, thank you, Miss B… err… Pen. But thank you just the same.”
“As you wish, Frank.” Penelope replies, a sigh of relief exhaled through her think, unpainted lips.
“It will take me a little bit of time to get used to calling you by your first name.” Frank goes on. “Sorry… err… Pen. I’m just not used to this informality.”
“Well, no matter Frank.” Penelope responds, resuming her seat, the springs groaning in protestation. “And of course, when we Socialists get our way in Parliament, we’ll do away with all those silly titles. Lord this! Lady that!” She scoffs, gesticulating into the air around her. “What piffle****************! Even, Mr. and Mrs. They don’t mean anything, now do they Frank?”
“Well they probably do to Mr. and Mrs. Whoever when they are first wed, but err… no.” Frank answers. “I suppose not.”
“No, exactly! At the end of the day, we’re all just people, aren’t we?” she smiles sweetly.
“Well yes.” Frank smiles too. “Yes we are.”
“So, have you then, Frank?” Penelope asks, her fingers steepling before her as she looks intently at Frank with her greyish-blue eyes.
“Have I what, err… Pen?”
“Have you seen one of Oliver’s speeches down on Speaker’s Corner on a Sunday?” She looks at him with hopeful eyes as she continues, “They really are quite inspirational, you know!”
“Ahh… yes.” Frank replies a little awkwardly. “Yes, I think I have.”
“Oh, jolly good show, Frank! Then you’ll know that he may look rather like a meek and mild bank manager or headmaster, but once he gets up on that podium, he can whip up the crowd’s fervour for our cause! Most thrilling!”
“Yes, most inspiring and thrilling, indeed.”
“Now,” Penelope begins with a large intake of breath. “I am sorry about the length of time it’s taken for me to see you, Frank. It’s not that I didn’t want to, but you see, after the General Strike, I did a speaking tour throughout the collieries up in Wales. Oh Frank!” she exclaims, wringing her hands. “Things are so terrible for the workers up there. Abandoned by the Trades Union Congress like that, they are still standing and holding out, bit only just*****************. I can’t say how much longer they’ll last for. The extreme starvation and economic exhaustion there is up there is something shocking to behold, let me tell you.” She sighs heavily. “And with the mounting debt, the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain won’t be able to hold out much longer. So, I did a speaking tour of the collieries for free, waiving my usual speaking tour fees and paying for travel and accommodation myself, to remind them all that whilst London might be back to its Capitalist self, there are still many of us who support their cause.”
“That’s very good of you, Pen.” Frank replies politely, although keeping his own counsel that he somehow thinks the Welsh miners might have preferred to do without a rallying speech at this stage, preferring food to fill their empty bellies, rather than talk, however well meaning. “I’m sure they all appreciated your support.”
“Thank you, Frank.” Penelope smiles graciously. “They did, very much.” she continues proudly.
The pair fall silent for a moment, the racket of the clattering printers filling the void of silence with vociferous metallic clangs groans, and wooden slaps.
“Now, as to why I wished to meet with you.” Penelope begins.
“Yes Pen?” Frank accidentally interrupts in his enthusiasm, coupled with nerves.
“Well, as you heard from my brother, both he and I were very impressed by your ‘Observations of a Shopkeeper’s Boy’ column that you wrote for the ‘British Worker’ during the General Strike, Frank.” She nods and smiles. “You write very well, and with passion. And you write succinctly, which is marvellous.”
“Thank you, Pen.” Frank replies gratefully.
“You’re welcome, Frank.” she answers. “You have no idea what it is like to work with intellectuals.” She raises her thin fingers to her temples and rubs them. “ They just don’t seem to understand that we’re a fortnightly newspaper, not an academic journal.” She shakes her head. “We simply cannot fit all they wish to say in their longwinded way, into a newspaper column. The amount of editing that Oliver, Doreen the other editors, and I do, really isn’t worth thinking about. But you write so sharply.”
“Well, I’m flattered you think so Mi… Pen.”
“Now, please don’t misunderstand me, Frank. If you do come to work with us, your work will still be edited by us. It does need a certain, finessing, shall we say, for our readers.”
“Oh, I don’t mind that.” Frank answers with a smile. “I’m just pleased you think my writing is passable enough to be published in your newspaper.”
“Good! That’s a relief.” Penelope claps her hands together joyfully. “Now, another problem with working with academics: you remove a single word from their opuses, and you may as well be hauled off to the Tower******************, accused of treason.”
“You can take words out of my articles if you think it necessary, Pen, or add words in. I don’t mind.”
“Spiffing Frank! Well, now that we’re in agreeance about that, there’s my next point.”
“Which is, Pen?” Frank leans forward in his seat.
“Well, I really like your characterisation.” Penelope leans in across the desk as well. “The way you write about that daughter of the grocer’s, stuck up thing, going to a grammar school and then trying to lord it over you. I can see it will drive our readers to rise up against their oppressors and demand equality. She’s the future generation that we need to convert to Socialism before it’s too late.”
“Thank you, Pen. I’m… well, I’m really chuffed you like it.”
“You’re welcome, Frank.” she says again. “And the young maid you write about, and her independence and freedom of thought, well, that really drew me in. I was a suffragette*******************, you know., Frank”
“No, I didn’t know.” Frank replies, although it hardly surprises him, and he can well imagine the somewhat intense woman seated opposite him smashing Selfridges plate glass windows or dropping bombs into pillar boxes, as so many militant suffragettes did before the war.
“Oh yes.” she opines. “I am quite passionate about women’s suffrage and equal rights. So many women out there are so oppressed by their mistresses that they don’t realise that their time is now. They are entitled to better working conditions and better wages, especially those like her who are under the yoke of domestic servitude.” She balls her fist and bangs it on the desk’s top, making all the paperwork and the typewriter atop it jump and vibrate. “We need their voices as much as we need men’s to further our movement.” Her eyes sparkle with enthusiasm. “I’m sure, since you are obviously an enlightened man, judging by what you write and how you write it, that you would agree with my sentiments.”
“Oh, I do, Pen.” Frank agrees, and genuinely meaning it. “Emancipation for all women, not just the wealthy few.********************”
“Exactly! Women awake and take up the sword!” Penelope crows proudly over the sound of the printers as she raises her clenched right fist into the air. “The sword of emancipation!”
Frank smiles at Penelope, admiring her passion for the cause.
Calming down, Penelope continues, “Now, there is just one teensy little thing about your writing that I’d like to raise, Frank.”
“Oh?”
“Yes.” She takes a sharp intake of breath. “Now, I don’t want you to take offence, please Frank.”
“I’m sure I won’t, Pen.” Frank assures her.
“Well, you know when you write about the man I know now, must be your boss, Mr, Willison?”
“You’re not suggesting we publish his name are you?” Frank’s eyes widen in fear as his face falls. “I should lose my position if you did, and I can’t afford that. I’m sorry Pen.”
“No, no, Frank!” Penelope holds up her hands and tries to calm the young man before her. “I would never want to put you into such a compromising position. No, on the contrary. The fact that your characters are anonymous is one of their draw cards. The oppressed, like you, in too low a position to wield any real power and exploited by their capitalist masters, will recognise their own indulgent bosses within your writing. And perhaps a young domestic out there somewhere will be able to relate to the maid you write of, and see that they too, can better themselves, and maybe one day escape a life of drudgery for independence.”
“Oh,” Frank exhales heavily. “That is great a relief M… err… Pen.”
“No, what I need from you is simple,” Penelope goes on. “And well within your skill as a writer, I’m sure.”
“What is it, Pen?” Frank queries.
“Well, when you write of Mr. Willison, you write of how he is dismissive of some of your ideas, and his wife too. You write about how they try and keep you in your place when you suggest ideas.”
“Yes?”
“Well, could you, perhaps, embellish the story just a little, Frank?”
“Embellish?” Frank questions.
“Yes. Taking that case in point as an example. Could you perhaps write that he dismissed your idea as foolish, but then took it for himself, and claimed it as his own.”
“But I don’t understand, Pen?” Frank asks. “That’s not what happened. Mr. Willison may not be the best employer in London, but he would never do that.”
“Oh, I’m sure he wouldn’t, Frank. I know. But, there is nothing to inspire our readers and further the Socialist cries, than by making their blood boil over the injustices to the working man and woman. Maybe make the maid’s mistress a little less forward thinking and likeable. Make the maid press to get her better working conditions. Don’t just say the mistress gives it to her when she asks for it. Make the mistress meaner and harder. Perhaps she could deny our young heroine, and lock her in her room.”
“But Miss Chet…” Frank clears his throat awkwardly as he almost speaks Lettice’s name in error. “The mistress isn’t like that. I mean, she certainly has characteristics of her class to be sure, Pen, but she isn’t cruel and unkind. She’s never have cause to lock her in her room.”
“Again, I know that, Frank, but elements like that, even if they aren’t true, would make your stories ever so much more compelling to our readership.”
“But I thought I was writing facts, like I did for the ‘British Worker’,” Frank remarks with disappointment as he settles back into his chair. “Not write fiction. Isn’t a newspaper columnist supposed to write about the truth, Pen?”
“Good heavens! What a peculiarly quaint idea, Frank.” Penelope laughs in surprise, but not unkindly. “Who on earth told you that?”
“I don’t see what’s so peculiar or quaint about it.” Frank defends, feeling hurt by Penelope’s laughter at his very noble statement. “The truth is the truth.”
“Except that the truth you read in any newspaper is seldom the complete truth.” Penelope states matter-of-factly. “And that is the truth.”
Frank looks away from Penelope, smarting from her rebuke.
Penelope picks up a packet of cigarettes from amongst the organised chaos of paper. “Gasper, Frank?”
“No, thank you.” Frank replies.
Penelope lights the cigarette with a match and then spends a few moments drawing on it and exhaling tumbling cloud of greyish blue acrid smoke through the air. Her eyes narrow as she considers the young man sitting on the other side of the desk through the miasma of smoke around her head. “How old are you, Frank?” she asks at last.
“I’m twenty-five. I turn twenty-six next April.” He pulls himself up and sits more straightly in his chair. “Why do you ask, Pen?”
“So, you weren’t old enough to participate in the war?”
“Well that all depends on what you classify as participation, Pen. I certainly made sure that I did what I could. I did my bit, like we all did on the home front. Dad and I had an allotment********************* where we grew our own vegetables, and we shared any excesses around with our neighbours who needed it.” He pauses for a moment. “But if you mean fighting on the front, no I didn’t.”
“I see.” Penelope’s eyebrows arch as she blows out another plume of smoke.
“I did try to enlist.” Frank goes on. “I lied about my age in 1918, but they still wouldn’t take me, on account of my flat feet.”
“Well thank heavens for small mercies, Frank.” Penelope draws on her cigarette making the paper and tobacco crackle as she does. “I’ve seen returned servicemen with the symptoms of trench foot**********************, and it’s not something I’d ever wish on anyone,” She exhales, sending out another tumbling cloud of smoke. “Even my worst enemy.”
“Pardon me, Pen,” Frank begins. “But I don’t see how, what I did during the war, impacts my writing.”
“Frank, I’m quite a bit older than you.”
“Oh I wouldn’t say….” Frank begins, but Penelope cuts him off sharply.
“Now Frank, I’ll have no gilding of the lily when it comes to me, and my looks.” She wags her right-hand index and middle fingers holding the half smoked cigarette between them at him. “No embellishments if you please. I’m a middle-aged bluestocking*********************** spinster Socialist, and I don’t care how old I look, because no man is going to look on my face and say – ‘there goes a beauty’. Even when I was younger, I disappointed my parents with my lack of attributes found in a jeune fille à marier************************.
“I beg your pardon, Pen. Please forgive my ignorance, but a what?”
“Oh, I apologise, Frank.” She draws on ger cigarette once more. “I’m showing traces of my non-Socialist upbringing and background.” She exhales again. “A jeune fille à marier is a marriageable young woman.” She stubs out her cigarette which crackles in the bottom of the ashtray as it sends out final curlicues of smoke before dying. “It’s French.”
“I’d gathered that much at least.” Frank admits.
“Anyway,” Penelope continues with her story. “I did my bit for the war effort too, but because I am older than you, mine was in an official capacity. Have you ever heard of Wellington House************************* before?”
“Uhh… no, Pen.” Frank replies, even more unsure now as to where the conversation is headed. “Should I have?
“No. Not at all. Very few people have. Even people in Parliament didn’t know very much about it when it was in operation. It was a war propaganda bureau which was very exclusive, and was made up of academics, artists and writers, like me. Our job was to try and influence opinion about the war, abroad, especially to places like America, who were neutral initially at the outbreak of war.”
“I see.”
“No, I don’t think you do, Frank,” Penelope contradicts him. “But I shall explain. In my job, writing pamphlets for Wellington House, I had to embellish the truth a little: make the Huns************************** sound just that bit more barbaric than they really were, and the necessity of American assistance all the more important for us. It meant bending the truth just a little, to further Britain’s war agenda and bring the conflict to a close sooner by bringing neutral powers like America into the war, and in so doing, save millions of lives. Now, the Great War may be over, but our war - this war of Socialism - is only just starting, Frank, and we need our army of people willing to fight for our cause. ‘Workers Awake’ is galvanising our readers and drawing them to the cause. If a tiny amount of embellishment and fabrication is used in your column to assist us in our aims, then so much the better. Do you see what I mean, now, Frank?”
“Yes, I do.” Frank replies less than enthusiastically.
“It’s your patriotic duty to the ideals of Socialism to support us, Frank.” Penelope urges. “Please Frank.”
“Yes but…”
“Ahh, I can see it still sticks uncomfortably in your craw.”
“I’m sorry, Pen,” Frank apologises politely. “But I just don’t feel comfortable in writing something that isn’t entirely true. I didn’t when I was writing during the General Strike. It was all truthful observations I made about what I saw around me.”
“That’s understandable. You are man who has scruples.”
“I do, Pen, and I shan’t apologise for them.”
“Of course not, Frank, and nor should you.” she insists. Then she continues by asking, “Tell me Frank, are you married?”
“No. Err… that is to say, no, not yet. I’m affianced. Edith is her name.”
“That must be hard, Frank.”
“What? No! No it isn’t. I’m very happy being engaged to my sweetheart. Edith is wonderful! I’m so lucky to be engaged to her.”
“No, I didn’t mean that, Frank.” Penelope clarifies. “I meant that it must be hard for you and Edith to try and save money to pay for a wedding and set up house together.”
“Oh, we manage alright.” Frank insists. “We are able to put a little bit away every week. There is, after all, Edith’s wage as well”.
“I take it that she’s a domestic.”
“She might be.” Franks says, deliberately being evasive.
“Perhaps Edith is even that delightful domestic with the independent streak, of whom you write, Frank.”
Frank deliberately doesn’t answer.
“Well,” Penelope says with a huff. “Let us get to the nub of the matter***************************, shall we?”
“I wish you would, Pen.” Frank replies a little peevishly.
“If you were to consider writing a new column for ‘Workers Awake’, just like ‘Observations of a Shopkeeper’s Boy’, and perhaps embellished them just a smidge****************************, we’d be willing to pay you five shillings for each one you submit.”
“Five shillings,” Frank bursts in disbelief, suddenly jolting forward in his seat, his eyes growing wide. “Five shillings for my work?”
“Oh, please forgive me Frank,” Penelope implores him. “But ‘Workers Awake’ is not like those big Fleet Street newspapers. We don’t have millions of subscribers across the country, although our circulation is increasing with every passing week. Oliver and I fund this newspaper ourselves with money from an allowance paid us from our parents’ estate, and subsidised through the generous support of my friend from the Fabian Society*****************************, Lady Gladys Caxton.” She smiles hopefully at Frank. “We publish once a fortnight, and only have a niche market at this time. As you saw when you arrived, we are printing off a couple of old letterpresses downstairs, and this is Oliver’s and my family home that we have turned into the office and printing works for ‘Workers Awake’, which is a personal project of ours to further our Socialist beliefs.”
“No, no! You misunderstand me, Pen!” Frank says in delight, smiling from ear to ear at her.
“I do?”
“Yes Pen! I thought you might pay me a shilling or maybe even two for a column, if I was lucky. But five?” He gasps. “I never thought my writing could command such a price! That’s fantastic, and yes, it would make such a difference to Edith and me, and our saving to start out our lives together as husband and wife.”
“We would of course, keep you anonymous as well, Frank. Your anonymity plays well into engaging the emotions of our readers as well. You could be anyone really, any worker, who is witnessing the travesties and the triumphs of our fellow workers.”
“Yes of course, Pen.” Frank answers brightly, only have listening as he con templates his luck. “Five shillings!” he murmurs in delight.
“We deliver on Fridays once a fortnight, so we usually print on Thursdays.” Penelope continues. “Today we’re printing fliers for a demonstration we’re organising for next Sunday afternoon in Hyde Park, near the Reformers' Tree******************************. It’s a demonstration about the miners' lockout and unemployment. You must come if you are free, Frank!” she says enthusiastically. “Remind me to give you a flier fresh off the press before you leave. Now, where was I?” she asks rhetorically. “Oh yes. So, we deliver on alternate Fridays, and print on Thursdays, so I’d like your column – no more than eight hundred words, if you please, Frank – here on a Wednesday by midday to one o’clock at the latest. We can pay you your five shillings then too if that suits you.”
“I can deliver them when I do my Bloomsbury rounds for Mr. Willison on Wednesdays.” Frank agrees with a happy nod. Then his face falls. “Oh, I’m afraid that I don’t have access to a typewriter, Pen.”
“No matter.” Penelope responds positively, much to Frank’s astonishment. “Tell me. What’s your handwriting like?”
“Good enough to do Mr. Willison’s price tags.” Frank responds hopefully.
“Jolly good show, Frank.” she smiles, her eyes glittering with life. “Then keep it neat, and we’ll accept your columns in written form. You can deliver then to Doreen, Oliver or to me. That gives whomever time to edit it before typesetting.”
“Right.” Frank agrees with an affirmative nod.
“And no payments in advance, Frank.” Penelope warns. “We will pay you only for work delivered to us within time, that we publish. You will get paid for your work the following fortnight. Do you understand, Frank?”
“Yes Pen. I understand.”
“Excellent! I take it then, that you find our arrangement satisfactory, Frank?”
“I do, Pen. Thank you.”
“Then let us shake hands on it, like comrades.”
Frank and Penelope both rise from their seats and reach across the cluttered desk, shaking hands warmly.
*Oxford Circus is one of London’s busiest and most iconic intersections, located in the West End where Oxford Street and Regent Street cross. It features a distinctive diagonal pedestrian crossing, is surrounded by major flagship stores, and sits directly above a major London Underground station.
**The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human culture from its beginnings to the present. Established in 1753, the British Museum was the first public national museum.
***Taviton Street is a street in the Bloomsbury district of central London, in the London Borough of Camden. It runs between Endsleigh Gardens in the north and Gordon Square and Endsleigh Place in the south.
****The 1926 General Strike was a nine-day nationwide stoppage in the United Kingdom between the third and twelfth of May. It was called by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) to support over a million coal miners facing wage cuts and longer hours. Following "Black Friday" in 1921, miners faced a lockout after refusing "not a penny off the pay, not an hour on the day" wage reductions and longer hours. About one point seven million workers paralysed transport, printing, and heavy industries temporarily. Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin's Conservative government declared a state of emergency, using volunteers and the military to maintain essential supplies and transport. The government produced the British Gazette to counter the strikers' message. The TUC ended the strike on May the twelfth, 1926, fearing it was moving toward a revolutionary, anti-democratic action. The miners remained locked out until the autumn, eventually accepting lower pay and longer hours, without securing any concessions.
*****The British Worker was a daily newspaper produced by the General Council of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) as their official mouthpiece during the 1926 General Strike. Its primary objectives were to circulate essential strike information, maintain the morale of workers, and counter government propaganda issued in the British Gazette. It ran for 11 issues between 5 May and 17 May 1926. Publication began two days after the strike started and continued slightly past its official end on 12 May. Managed by a Publicity Committee, the paper focused strictly on the strike. It excluded general news to ensure readers weren\'t distracted from the industrial action. While the Gazette branded the strike as a "revolutionary" threat, the British Worker maintained that it was a legal "defensive strike" to protect miners\' wages and living standards. The newspaper encouraged strikers to remain calm and orderly, famously using slogans like "All\'s Well" and features such as "Do\'s for Difficult Days". It also reported on the effectiveness of the strike, including instances where "scab labour" (volunteer workers) caused accidents due to incompetence.
******Bakelite, was the first plastic made from synthetic components. Patented on December 7, 1909, the creation of a synthetic plastic was revolutionary for its electrical nonconductivity and heat-resistant properties in electrical insulators, radio and telephone casings and such diverse products as kitchenware, jewellery, pipe stems, children's toys, and firearms. A plethora of items were manufactured using Bakelite in the 1920s and 1930s.
*******A Greek nose, also known as a straight nose, is an aesthetic description for a nose with a smooth, relatively straight bridge that has little to no visible hump or depression.
********A head that is bald on top with a ring of hair remaining on the sides and back is most commonly called a horseshoe hairline.
*********Plus fours are loose-fitting breeches or trousers that extend four inches below the knee, popular for sports like golf and shooting, especially in the 1920s. They were designed for comfort, allowing for unrestricted movement during activities like walking, hiking, or swinging a golf club. They are named for the extra four inches of material that hang over the knee band, which is more than the two inches found on "plus twos". They offered more freedom of movement than traditional shorter knickerbockers. Introduced around the 1920s, they were heavily popularised by the Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII), and became a staple of sporting fashion for men and sometimes women. These are typically worn with knee-high stockings and often paired with brogue shoes, knee-high socks, and braces.
**********An argyle jumper is a knitted sweater featuring a distinct pattern of colourful, overlapping diamonds or lozenges crossed by diagonal intersecting lines. The design consists of solid-coloured diamond shapes overlaid with thin diagonal lines in contrasting colours. The pattern comes from the Seventeenth Century tartan of Clan Campbell in the Argyll region of western Scotland. Scottish knitwear brand Pringle of Scotland and the Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) popularised the pattern for golf wear and sportswear during the 1920s and 1930s.
***********Horn-rimmed glasses are a type of eyeglasses with frames traditionally made from horn or tortoiseshell. Since the Twentieth century, most frames of this style have been made from plastics designed to imitate those materials. Horn-rimmed glasses are usually associated with thick, prominent rims, in contrast to thinner metal, wire or rimless eyeglass frames. Horn-rimmed glasses were one of the first styles of eyeglasses to become a popular fashion item, after comedian Harold Lloyd began wearing a round pair in his films. The glasses have enjoyed various periods of popularity throughout the Twentieth Century, being considered especially fashionable in the interwar 1920s and 1930s.
************Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park is a historic open-air public speaking and debate area where anyone can stand on a soapbox and share their views. Situated on the north-east edge of Hyde Park in London, near Marble Arch and Oxford Street, Speakers’ Corner was established following the Parks Regulation Act of 1872, which set aside the area for public meetings after mid-19th-century worker protests and riots. Over the decades, notable figures such as Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, William Morris, and George Orwell used the platform. Sunday mornings and afternoons remain the most active times when crowds gather to listen to campaigners, religious speakers, and debaters. Anyone can speak unannounced on almost any topic, provided the speech is lawful and does not incite hatred or use profanity.
*************A worker's flat cap is a traditional, rounded cap with a small, stiff brim in front, historically worn by working-class men in the UK, Ireland, and North America from the Fourteenth Century onwards. In 1571, the English government mandated that all males over six (except nobility) wear a wool cap on Sundays and holidays to boost the wool industry, solidifying the flat cap's status as a working-class staple. Over time, it became a symbol of working-class culture, often associated with the phrase "flat cap and whippet," before also being adopted for leisure activities like golf. It was designed to be practical for manual labour—worn by farmers, miners, and factory workers — providing weather protection. It is known for its simple, rounded shape, which can be pulled forward for extra protection against the wind. Made typically of wool, tweed, or cotton, it was favoured for its durability, affordability, and warmth.
**************The thoroughly British greeting and farewell phrase "pip-pip" comes from an imitation of the high-pitched sound made by early car or bicycle horns around the turn of the Twentieth Century. First appearing around the late 19th to early 20th century, "pip-pip" was originally used literally to mimic the sharp, short toot of a squeezing bulb horn on a car or bicycle. By around 1907, the expression evolved into a slangy, cheery colloquial greeting or farewell used in Britain, famously associated with the upper classes and popularized in literature by authors like P.G. Wodehouse.
***************Peek Freans is the name of a former biscuit making company based in Bermondsey, which is now a global brand of biscuits and related confectionery owned by various food businesses. De Beauvoir Biscuit Company owns but does not market in the United Kingdom, Europe and United States; Mondelēz International owns the brand in Canada; and English Biscuit Manufacturers owns the brand in Pakistan. Peek, Frean & Co. Ltd was registered in 1857 by James Peek (1800–1879) and his nephew-in-law George Hender Frean. The business was based in a disused sugar refinery on Mill Street in Dockhead, South East London, in the west of Bermondsey. With a quickly expanding business, in 1860, Peek engaged his friend John Carr, the apprenticed son of the Carlisle-based Scottish milling and biscuit-making family, Carr's. From 1861, Peek, Frean & Co. Ltd started exporting biscuits to Australia, but outgrew their premises from 1870 after agreeing to fulfil an order from the French Army for 460 long tons of biscuits for the ration packs supplied to soldiers fighting the Franco-Prussian War. After hostilities ended, the French Government ordered a further 16,000 long tons (11 million) sweet "Pearl" biscuits in celebration of the end of the Siege of Paris, and further flour supplies for Paris in 1871 and 1872, with financing undertaken by their bankers the Rothschilds. The consequential consumer demands of emigrating French expatriate soldiers, allowed the company to start exporting directly to Ontario, Canada from the mid-1870s. On 23 April 1873, the old Dockhead factory burnt down in a spectacular fire,[1] which brought the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) out on a London Fire Brigade horse-drawn water pump to view the resulting explosions. In 1906, the Peek, Frean and Co. factory in Bermondsey was the subject of one of the earliest documentary films shot by Cricks and Sharp. This was in part to celebrate an expansion of the company's cake business, which later made the wedding cakes for both Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten (later Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh) and Charles, Prince of Wales (later King Charles III), and Lady Diana Spencer. In 1924, the company established their first factory outside the UK, in Dum Dum in India. In 1931, five personnel from the Bermondsey factory went to Australia to train the staff in the new factory in Camperdown, in Sydney. In 1949, they established their first bakery in Canada, located on Bermondsey Road in East York, Ontario, which still today produces Peek Freans branded products. After 126 years, the London factory was closed by then owner BSN on Wednesday 26 May 1989.
****************Piffle is an informal term for trivial nonsense, foolish talk, or rubbish. It is used to describe insignificant or nonsensical ideas.
*****************The Welsh miners remained on strike for an additional six to seven months after the wider General Strike was officially called off by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) on 12 May 1926. Left to fight entirely alone, the miners in the South Wales coalfield fiercely resisted through a punishing lockout and strike that lasted until late November 1926. Between June and October, the miners endured months of intense poverty, relying heavily on community soup kitchens and local school programs to feed their children. Finally, on the 19th of November 1926, facing extreme starvation, economic exhaustion, and mounting debt, the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain finally capitulated and recommended an official return to work. Nearly all surviving miners were back in the pits on increased hours for reduced wages by the end of the month.
******************The Tower of London is quite often affectionally shorted to “the Tower” by Londoners.
*******************A suffragette was a woman who fought for the right to vote in political elections during the early 20th century, specifically through militant and direct action.
********************In 1926, women in England were only allowed to vote if they were over the age of 30 and met strict property qualifications. Under the rules established by the Representation of the People Act 1918, a woman over thirty could vote only if she was, a registered property owner (or tenant of land/premises with an annual value of at least five pounds), married to someone who met those local government property qualifications, or graduate of a British university voting in a university constituency. During this time, men faced no property restrictions and could vote starting at age twenty-one (or age nineteen if they were in the armed forces). It was not until the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928 that women in England finally achieved equal voting rights, lowering their voting age to twenty-one and removing all property restrictions.
*********************An allotment is a small plot of land rented by an individual or family for growing vegetables, fruit, flowers, and sometimes keeping small livestock such as hens. In Britain, allotments became especially important during the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries. Many working-class families living in towns had no garden of their own, so a local council or landowner would provide a piece of land that could be cultivated for food. In the 1920s, an English allotment might contain potatoes, cabbages and kale, onions and leeks, peas and beans, rhubarb, gooseberries and currants, a small shed for tools, a compost heap and if there was enough space, sometimes chickens or rabbits. For a British family in 1926, an allotment was often a practical source of food as well as a hobby. Men commonly spent evenings and weekends there, though women and children frequently helped too.
**********************Trench foot, nowadays known as immersion foot syndrome, is a serious, non-freezing cold injury caused by prolonged exposure to wet, damp, and cold conditions. When feet remain wet and cold for hours or days, the body constricts blood vessels to prevent heat loss, cutting off circulation and depriving the tissue of oxygen and nutrients. The condition famously earned its name during the Great War, when tens of thousands of soldiers developed it after standing for long periods in cold, mud-filled trenches. To begin with, the feet feel cold, numb, heavy, or "woody". The skin often turns pale or splotchy red. As the feet begin to warm up, they can switch from numb to highly painful. The skin may shift in colour to a deep purple or blue. If left untreated, the feet swell significantly, develop blisters or open ulcers, and may emit a decay odour. In extreme cases, complete tissue death (gangrene) sets in, which can require surgical amputation to prevent life-threatening infections like sepsis. During the war this is what happened to many men, and it either took their lives, or maimed them for life after the war.
***********************The term bluestocking was applied to any of a group of women who in mid Eighteenth Century England held “conversations” to which they invited men of letters and members of the aristocracy with literary interests. The word over the passing centuries has come to be applied derisively to a woman who affects literary or learned interests.
************************A jeune fille à marier was a marriageable young woman, the French term used in fashionable circles and the upper-classes of Edwardian society before the Second World War.
*************************Wellington House and the Ministry of Information were part of the same wartime propaganda system, but they differed in scale, visibility, and organisation. Wellington House was created in 1914 as the War Propaganda Bureau and was used mainly for influencing opinion abroad, especially in neutral countries. It was directed by Charles Masterman – a British radical Liberal Party politician, intellectual and man of letters. Wellington House was a small, elite, behind-the-scenes propaganda bureau. It quietly recruited famous authors like John Buchan, H. G. Wells, and Arthur Conan Doyle, historians, and painters Francis Dodd and Paul Nash amongst others, to sway opinion, and distributed material through apparently independent channels. Its strength was subtle influence. Before its abolition in 1917, the Bureau published some three hundred books and pamphlets in twenty-one different languages, distributed over four thousand propaganda photographs every week, and circulated maps, cartoons and lantern slides to the media.
**************************“Hun” is an offensive historical and antiquated slang term for German people, particularly German soldiers. Popularised by Allied propaganda during the Great War and the Second World War, it originated partly from a speech given by Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1900 telling his troops to act like Attila's Huns in China
***************************The phrase "the nub of the matter" means the central, most essential point of a problem, situation, or argument. The word nub first appeared in English during the late 1590s. It is a linguistic variant of the dialectal word knub (or knob). According to the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, it traces back to the Middle Low German words knubbe or knobbe, which simply meant a physical lump, bump, or small protuberance. People originally used it to describe small physical objects, like a small lump of coal. For more than two centuries, a "nub" remained strictly physical. However, in the 19th century, English speakers began using the word abstractly. The logic of that is: if a "nub" is a small, hard, solid core of a physical object, then the "nub" of an argument or a story is its small, solid, and undeniable core truth. Th figurative meaning of "nub" as the "point or gist" of a situation was first officially recorded in 1834.
****************************The phrase "just a smidge" means a very small, barely noticeable amount of something. Its origin traces back to Nineteenth Century Scottish dialects, but it didn't evolve into the specific shortened phrase "just a smidge" until the early Twentieth Century. In the early 1800s, the Scots and Northern English dialects used the word "smitch" to mean a tiny speck, a small stain, or an insignificant person. This was closely tied to smeddum, an old word for finely ground flour or powder.
*****************************The Fabian Society is a British socialist organisation whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy and democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in democracies, rather than by revolutionary overthrow. The Fabian Society was also historically related to radicalism, a left-wing liberal tradition.
******************************The Reformers' Tree was an oak tree in Hyde Park, London, that became the birthplace of the modern free speech movement in Britain and the direct precursor to the world-famous Speakers' Corner. In the mid-Nineteenth Century, a political activist group known as the Reform League began staging massive demonstrations campaigning for the right to vote for all adult working-class men. In July 1866, a massive march descended on Hyde Park. When the police closed the gates to block them, the furious crowd tore down over a mile of iron perimeter railings to force their way inside. During the chaotic demonstrations that followed, the old oak tree was set on fire and burned down. Instead of ruining the site, the charred, blackened stump of the tree became an instant political symbol. Protesters began using the stump as an official noticeboard to pin up political flyers, a podium for soapbox speakers, and the central rallying point for all future mass demonstrations. The relentless protests at the tree trunk successfully pressured the British government. In 1872, Parliament passed the Parks Regulation Act, officially setting aside the north-east corner of Hyde Park for public speaking—creating Speakers' Corner and cementing the legal right to public assembly and free speech.
This cluttered and rather untidy office may look real to you, but it is in fact made up of pieces from my 1:12 miniatures collection.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
On the desktop, Penelope’s Craven ‘A’ cigarettes and Swan Vesta matches were made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire, with extreme attention paid to the packaging. The black ashtray, which is also an artisan piece, the base 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).
The correspondence, letters and newspaper are also made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures with particular care paid to the authenticity of them. The brown leather journals came from Kathleen Knight’s Doll’s House Shop in the United Kingdom, as do the green and blue mugs with teaspoons sticking out of them, and books clittered around the desk’s surface.
The typewriter is a 1:12 artisan miniature made by the Little Green Workshop in England, who specialise in high-end, handmade miniatures. The details on the typewriter are wonderful.
The pencils come from Melody Jane’s Dolls’ House Suppliers in the United Kingdom. The pencils are only one millimetre wide and two centimetres long.
The gilt edged floral teacup came from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering, and is part of a tea set for four. The teaspoons also come from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures.
The ‘Workers Awake’ newspapers were created and printed by me.
The two ornate chairs with the red velvet button back upholstery, and the desk with its brown leather surface, are made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq.
The glass fronted bookcase is a replica of a bookcase belonging to Abraham Lincoln and is part of the Lincoln Collection, made and distributed in America.
The books stacked in the bookcase and outside it on its lip, as well as those flanking the clock on the fireplace mantle are all 1:12 size miniatures made by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. Most of the books I own that he has made may be opened to reveal authentic printed interiors. In some cases, you can even read the words, depending upon the size of the print! I have quite a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my collection, but so little of his real artistry is seen because the books that he specialised in making are usually closed, sitting on shelves or closed on desks and table surfaces. What might amaze you is that all Ken Blythe’s opening books are authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make this a miniature artisan piece. He also made the envelopes sitting in the rack to the left of the desk. Ken Blythe’s work is highly sought after by miniaturists around the world today and command high prices at auction for such tiny pieces, particularly now that he is no longer alive. I was fortunate enough to acquire pieces from Ken Blythe prior to his death about four years ago, as well as through his estate via his daughter and son-in-law. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.
The classical bust of Clyte is another 1:12 artisan miniature made from genuine Parian. She is very old, probably Victorian, and was acquired by me from an antique and curios shop from a cabinet of miniatures.
The clock on the mantlepiece is made from a single small piece of burr walnut and is a 1:12 artisan miniature made by an unknown artist in the United Kingdom.
The rather droopy looking fern and its ornate brass stand were made by 1:12 miniature artisan Sandra Henry Wall in America.
The miniature silhouettes on the wall are artisan miniatures that I acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Doll’s House Shop in the United Kingdom.
The Art Nouveau fireplace surround was made by Taylor & Barrett in England and dates from the late 1920s, and is made from hollow cast lead which has then been hand painted. Founded by Fred Taylor and A.R. Barrett, Taylor & Barrett was a prominent British manufacturer renowned for high-quality, hollow-cast lead miniature toys. They were known for extensive zoo series (animals, keepers), road signs, fire engines, trolleybuses, and detailed dolls' house items like vacuum cleaners and stoves. Before the Second World War production was high, with many items produced between 1920 and 1939. The company halted production during the war before splitting into F.G. Taylor & Sons and Barrett & Sons post-war. Their items are highly sought after by vintage toy collectors today.
The wallpaper in the background is 1:12 scale William Morris Leaves and Berries paper, printed by me.
“Buzz off its smoko”
Worker bee working hard or hardly working..
You know when you’re walking around a toy store looking at all the lego you can’t afford and something grabs your attention. Well this happened with the lego mario bee outfit set #71393. I saw the bee hat and thought “yes, I need to build something with that” One afternoon later I ended up with this little guy.
They are binding the water lily (a vegetable too) for selling. which has been picked from the nearby lake ...
Captured from Mirpur Beri Badh, Dhaka, Bangladesh
© Kamrul Hasan all rights reserved. contact: mkhasan[at]gmail.com
In late 2020, at the height of the COVID pandemic, Montana Rail Link wrapped their SD70ACe no. 4404 in this special scheme honoring Essential Workers. Unfortunately, after five years of service in and out of the tunnels of the line, the bold, patriotic look of the unit has acquired the same drab look of a stereotypical Southern Pacific unit.
Regardless of its appearance, when I heard that there was "an" MRL unit outside of the Topeka Shops, I ran out to photograph it, even if it was buried mid-consist. The fact that it was THIS MRL unit made it even better!
It may not look great anymore, but its cool to see these MRL units in my neighborhood, and I hope that the rumors of its PTC installation are true. That being said, lets not lose track of the message of this unit in that there were a lot of people back in 2020-21 who continued to go out each and every day doing yeoman's work to keep this world going, and good on 'em.