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 in the very modern and up-to-date 1920s kitchen of Lettice’s flat: Edith, her maid’s, preserve. With her mistress out, having a final fitting for her outfit for the Royal wedding of her friend Elizabeth* to the Duke of York**, Edith is enjoying the sense of tranquillity that falls upon the Cavendish Mews flat when Lettice is not home, and is sitting at the deal kitchen table in the middle of the room, looking through one of her small number of cookbooks as she works out a menu for the next few days. Having just boiled the brass kettle on the stovetop behind her, the young maid has made a pot of tea for herself, and it sits within easy reach of her right hand, the spout peeping out from the blue and white knitted tea cosy made for her by her mother. Steam rises from the spout, and from the Delftware cup featuring a windmill as she cradles it in both her hands as she consults ‘Miss Drake’s Home Cookery’*** and considers whether to cook fillets of whiting with oyster sauce or Clementine Sauce for Lettice’s luncheon on Tuesday.
“Let’s see,” Edith says quietly mulling over the recipe for Clementine Sauce aloud. “One ounce of butter, one ounce of flour, half a pint of fish stock, half a gill**** of cream, lemon juice, salt and cayenne to taste. Oh! Parmesan! I don’t have any of that. Well, I can get some from Willison’s easily enough.”
Just at that moment there is a tentative knock on the tradesman’s door leading out of the kitchen onto the back stairs of the flats, shattering Edith’s quiet contemplation and startling her so much that she almost spills tea onto her precious cookbook.
“That’s Frank’s knock.” Edith remarks aloud to the empty kitchen around her, recognising the slightly hesitant tap of her young man, Frank Leadbetter, delivery boy for Willison’s Grocery in Mayfair. “Frank? Frank is that you?” she calls cheerily, quickly standing up and self-consciously brushing down the front of her blue and white striped morning print dress uniform and quickly sweeping some loose strands of her blonde hair behind her ears in an effort to make herself more presentable for her beau.
“It is Edith.” Frank’s voice calls from the other side of the white painted door. “May I come in?”
“Oh yes, do come in Frank. It’s not locked.”
The door opens and Frank pokes his head around the door, his workman’s flat cap covering his head of mousy brown hair. He smiles, his pale skin flush from riding his bike and then climbing several flights of stairs to reach the Cavendish Mews flat from the ground floor.
“You’re just in time.” Edith continues with a smile. “I’ve just boiled the kettle. If you have time that is.”
“Yes, I do.” Frank indicates, walking into Edith’s cosy kitchen and closing the door behind him so as to keep the cool spring air outside. He is struck by the ghostly, yet comforting wafts of butter and herbs from last night’s Chicken a la Minute dinner that Edith cooked for Lettice. “Jolly good Edith. All this bicycling around Mayfair and Pimlico gives a man a thirst.”
Edith walks over to the pine dresser and takes down another Delftware cup and saucer whilst Frank lifts up the Windsor backed chair next to the back door and carries it across the waxed black and white chequered linoleum floor and puts it adjunct to Edith’s own Windsor chair.
“It’s funny, Frank. I was just making a mental note to myself to order some Parmesan cheese from Mr. Willison’s, and here you are!”
“Well,” Frank removes his cap and runs his fingers through his slightly wavy hair before depositing the cap on the surface of the kitchen table. “You know I’m always at your service, Miss Watsford.”
Edith giggles as she and Frank sit down at the table.
As Edith lifts the cosy clad pot and pours Frank a cup of steaming tea, she remarks, “But I don’t have a grocery order, Frank. What are you doing here?” She quickly adds, “Not that I mind, of course.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Frank laughs good naturedly.
“Don’t tell me that Mr. and Mrs. Willison have shown some heart and given you the morning off.”
“Not likely, Edith!” Frank scoffs casting his eyes to the ceiling above, taking up the sugar bowl and adding two large heaped spoonfuls of sugar to his tea. “No, I finished my round of deliveries early, so I thought I had just enough time to pop in and have a cup of tea with my sweetheart before I was missed back at the shop.”
‘Well, we better make the most of this impromptu visit then, before you are missed.”
“Oh yes! That old Mrs. Willison is a tartar! I think she is more of stickler for time than Mr. Willison is.”
“So, to what do I owe the honour then, Frank?”
“What? Can’t a chap visit his girl just to say hullo?”
“Well of course, Frank.” Edith picks up her own teacup again. “I’m always delighted to be graced with your company.”
“That’s better.” Frank nods approvingly as he stirs his tea with a slightly tarnished teaspoon. He takes a sip and sighs with pleasure before adding, “But actually, I do have an ulterior motive to be here today, Edith.”
“Oh?” Edith queries warily. “What is it, Frank?”
“Well, I know I got off to a bad start with you family the other Sunday,” Frank begins.
“Oh, are you still worried about that, Frank? I thought we’d been through all this on Easter Sunday.” Edith admonishes. With a brave smile she assures him, “I told you: we’ll win Mum over easily enough, given a bit of time and you keeping quiet about some of your more progressive workers’ ideas.”
“I know, Edith, but I’ve got a little something with me that might calm the waters a little, at least with your dad.”
“What is it? What have you got, Frank?”
“These.” Frank reaches into the inside of his white shirt beneath his russet coloured woollen vest and withdraws a small envelope from his breast pocket.
Handing it to Edith with a beaming smile he lets his sweetheart investigate it. The envelope is postmarked with yesterday’s date. Addressed to Frank by hand in a neat copperplate care of the boarding house in Holborn the return address, one in Wembley that she doesn’t recognise, is typed in the top left hand corner.
“What is it, Frank?” Edith asks suspiciously, holding the envelope aloft, poised in the air between them.
“Well, just open it and find out.” Frank encourages her with a broad smile. “It won’t bite.” He chuckles at Edith’s hesitancy.
Edith slips her fingers tentatively beneath the edge of the back of the envelope and hooks underneath it. It comes away easily, having already been opened and simply slipped back into place. Opening the envelope, she peers inside and withdraws several small pale yellow ticket stubs between her slightly careworn fingers. She gasps as she reads the black print on one of the four tickets.
“This is for the White Horse Finals***** at Empire Stadium******!”
“I know.” Frank replies matter-of-factly, but with pride beaming from his expression. “There are four tickets in there.”
“Four tickets!” Edith gasps, looking again, her eyes growing wide in amazement.
“Yes: two for us and one each for your dad and mum.”
“Four! That’s amazing Frank! You can’t get a ticket for the finals for love nor money!”
“I thought they might help make up for my somewhat awkward introduction to your parents, and show that I really do care about you, and them too, of course.”
“Oh Frank!” Edith leaps out of her chair and flings her arms around Frank’s neck as he sits there.
Unaccustomed to such fervent signs of affection from Edith, who is usually very reserved, Frank is taken aback at first, but then settles comfortably into the embrace, smiling as he inhales the sweet smell of his sweetheart: freshly laundered clothes and Lifebuoy soap intermixed with the fragrance of her hair. He wraps his arms around Edith’s waist carefully and for a moment is lost in his love for her before the moment is broken as Edith regains her composure and finally pulls away from him, albeit a little reluctantly.
“How on earth did you get these?” Edith asks in astonishment, resuming her seat. “Magic? Dad’s been trying to get hold of tickets for weeks and weeks, pulling every string and pulling in every favour that he can!”
“I guess they just weren’t the right strings he pulled.” Frank beams elatedly.
“But how did you do it?”
“Well, you know how I said when we had lunch with your parents that there was some doubt as to whether the Empire Stadium will be completed on time.”
“Yes Frank.”
“Well, I know a bit more than the papers let on because I’m friendly with a couple of chaps who are working on the building of it, you see.”
“Really Frank?”
“Yes. Anyway, one of them has a girl who works at the booking office for the football final tickets, and my friend pulled a few strings for me, and there you go!” He waves a hand theatrically towards the envelope, which Edith has now placed face down on the kitchen table between them.
“Oh Frank! You are a wonder!” Edith picks up her cup of tea and takes a sip.
“Well, think of it as more of a good will gesture from me to your parents, than a gift from me to you.”
“But Frank, don’t you see? It is a gift! This will help brush over that awkwardness from the other day, and calm the waters as you say. You’re so clever!”
“Well,” Frank says happily, looking very pleased with himself. “You’re my girl, Edith, and I want your parents’ blessing as well as my Gran’s, when it comes to marrying you one day. I need to make sure that your parents know that even though I may be a bit of a radical thinker, I have your best interests at heart: first and foremost.”
“And this will go well towards building the foundations of their trust in you, Frank! It really will!” Edith enthuses. “Dad’s been like a child with a broken toy according to Mum, moping about the house when he comes home empty handed after seeing friends down at the pub who haven’t been able to get him tickets. He was even thinking of just taking Mum for a picnic and the pair of them would sit outside the stadium and listen to what was going on inside.”
“Well now he won’t have to, Edith! He can go! We all can go!”
“How lucky am I, to have you as my beau, Frank Leadbetter?”
“About as lucky as I am to have you as my best girl, Edith Watsford.”
The par of young lovers laugh as they settle back in their chairs, chatting away happily, making the most of the unexpected stolen moment together before Frank must return to his job delivering groceries and Edith to her household chores around the flat.
*Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, as she was known at the beginning of 1923 when this story is set, went on to become Queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions from 1936 to 1952 as the wife of King George VI. Whilst still Duke of York, Prince Albert initially proposed to Elizabeth in 1921, but she turned him down, being "afraid never, never again to be free to think, speak and act as I feel I really ought to". He proposed again in 1922 after Elizabeth was part of his sister, Mary the Princess Royal’s, wedding party, but she refused him again. On Saturday, January 13th, 1923, Prince Albert went for a walk with Elizabeth at the Bowes-Lyon home at St Paul’s, Walden Bury and proposed for a third and final time. This time she said yes. The wedding took place on April 26, 1923 at Westminster Abbey.
**Prince Albert, Duke of York, known by the diminutive “Bertie” to the family and close friends, was the second son of George V. He was never expected to become King, but came to the throne after his elder brother David, the Prince of Wales, abdicated in 1936 so that he could marry the love of his life American divorcée, Wallis Simpson. Although not schooled in being a ruler, Bertie, who styled himself as George VI as a continuation of his father, became King of United Kingdom and the Dominions from 1936 to 1952, and saw Britain through some of its darkest days, becoming one of the most popular monarchs in British history.
***’Miss Drake’s Home Cookery’ is a book of standard household recipes suitable for a plain cook or maid-of-all-work like Edith. First published in 1915 it was compiled by Miss Lucy Drake, a trained cookery teacher at the Education Department of Melbourne, and a student of the National Training School of Cookery and other branches of Domestic Economy , Buckingham Palace Road, London.
****The gill or teacup is a unit of measurement for volume equal to a quarter of a pint. It is no longer in common use, except in regard to the volume of alcoholic spirits measures, but was certainly a well known measure in the years prior to the Second World War.
*****The first football match to be played at Wembley Stadium 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.
******Originally known as Empire Stadium, London’s Wembley Stadium was built to serve as the centerpiece of the British Empire Exhibition. It took a total of three hundred days to construct the stadium at a cost of £750,000. The stadium was completed on the 23rd of April 1923, only a few days before the first football match, between the Bolton Wanderers and West Ham United, was to take place at the stadium. The stadium’s first turf was cut by King George V, and it was first opened to the public on 28 April 1923. Much of Humphry Repton’s original Wembley Park landscape was transformed in 1922 and 1923 during preparations for the British Empire Exhibition. First known as the "British Empire Exhibition Stadium" or simply the "Empire Stadium", it was built by Sir Robert McAlpine for the British Empire Exhibition of 1924 (extended to 1925).
This cosy domestic kitchen scene is a little different to what you might think, for whilst it looks very authentic, it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my miniatures collection.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
Central to our story is the envelope containing the four tickets to the White Horse final, which is a 1:12 size miniature made to incredibly high standards of realism by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make this a miniature artisan piece. Although known predominantly for his creation of miniature books, Ken has also created quite a number of other items, including envelopes and even tiny legible letters that go inside them. 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.
Also on Edith’s deal table stands her teapot. 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 Delftware cups, saucers and milk jug are part of a 1:12 size miniature porcelain dinner set which sits on the dresser that can be seen just to the right of shot.
The little cookbook, a non-opening 1:12 artisan miniature of a real cookbook, comes from a small American artisan seller on E-Bay.
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.
Posted by raaen99 on 2023-04-16 07:35:32
Tagged: , envelope , postmark , stamp , stamps , book , cookbook , teapot , cosy , tea cosy , cup , saucer , milk jug , flowers , vase of flowers , teacup , jug , Delftware , Delftware jug , flower , dresser , kitchen table , table , kitchen , miniature , 1:12 , 1:12 scale , dollhouse miniature , dollhouse , toy , antique , artisan , hand made , hand made dollhouse miniature , servants , furniture , Edwardian , 1920s , stove , dollhouse furniture , kitchen stove , servants , backstairs , below stairs , kitchen dresser , Windsor chair , tabletop , tabletop photography , interior , miniature room , mop , broom , kettle , brass kettle , bowl , china , bucket , oven